VeriFLY: Fast Digital Identity 4+

Recently used VeriFLY on trip from US to UK and Spain and back on American Airlines and British Airways. Checking in to flights in US, Spain and the UK showing my approval on VeriFLY made check in a breeze. Since I had uploaded my covid test, UK and Spanish travel plan documents, and vaccination status to VeriFLY in advance there was no need for me to show this paper documentation to the check in and customs agents at the airports. I was very pleased at how smooth VeriFLY made the process. However, the initial process of setting up trips and uploading documents in the app itself is very unintuitive and confusing. It’s pretty clear the app developers did little, if any, usability testing before launching the app. Or if they did, they tested it on engineers for whom the arcane process seemed clear. So give yourself lots of time before your trip to figure out how to use VeriFLY—like at least a week. If you try to use it last minute you are probably in for a world of frustration. Also, set up your trip in the app ahead of time, then upload all your vaccine, travel plan and covid test docs as soon as you have them—usually 48 hours before flying. Don’t wait until the last minute!

I downloaded this app to support an international flight on American Airlines. Download was easy and the system is mostly intuitive to use. However, I experienced problems uploading the Covid test results. Specifically I uploaded my test results and then my husband’s test results within minutes of each other using primarily the same data for location, provider, and results. My husband’s results were reviewed and accepted within 20 minutes. My results were rejected stating my document didn’t meet requirements. Interesting that my document looked exactly like my husband’s which they accepted. I resubmitted it starting from scratch twice more before it was accepted. Aggravating to say the least.
Then for the return flight, the American Airlines app wouldn’t allow checking until the return Covid test results were uploaded but the VeriFLY app did not provide a function for the return portion of the trip on the international side. It also wouldn’t let me add a new trip for the return from the international side. The app does not support return trip upload of Covid docs st all and provides no customer support to address the problem. It could be a useful app but needs major work to function properly, consistently, and for round trip purposes.

I’ve used this app once in the winter of 2021 to go from the US to Canada and the check in process was flawless! It states it takes about an hour to process my negative COVID results and it was true. Now, I am preparing for a trip from US to Canada once again and everything was going well until Verifly couldn’t complete my form because I needed to confirm my citizenship (which I am a citizen of the US.)
I couldn’t continue with my check in online because of the app locking the feature of me verifying my citizenship until 3 days before my return flight and after contacting customer support by email (kind of wish I was able to communicate by call, but email is the only form of communication it seems), they told me it would be best to just check in at the airport. I would’ve loved to have been able to save time by checking in online, although I understand how there could be a bug or two in an app.
I do hope they can either fix this or revise it considering that us travelers would need to arrive earlier at the airport because of these issues. Hopefully everyone else will have a better experience and a safe travels!