Had a new one tonight.

I booked a reservation with an intl fare that apparently expired tonight, and the rep put it on a tkt time limit expiring tonight.

Then I found out, only through my own re-asking that part of it was booked in S which is not upgradeable using a dmuta4 cert.. However, first rep said whole thing was upgradeable. However, I'm not even upset about htat, because I found it and I know enough to check.

Figured too risky just to leave it in S as the next person might not upgrade the over water segments.

Call back, and get res rebooked in an upgradeable class.

However, the res agent said it was "policy" not to extend the ticketing time limit on an existing reservation even if the fare rules allowed the extension, or even if the original ticketing time limit was not as long as is allowed. He said the only thing he could do is cancel this reservation, and book a completely new one. He was adamant that there is a company policy that you never extend a ticketing time limint in a PNR that you always must book a new record even if the time limit entered was wrong.

Mind you, literally, I had booked this reservation about 30 minutes before.

I told him I was not aware of this, and wondered if it was a new policy? Finally, after speaking to his supervisor, he agreed to rebook the reservation in the same record, but he said he could only hold it for 24 hours.

I said that normally I thought an intl reservation could be held for 3 days, and I asked him if I was bumping up against a 21 adv purch fare. He said he didn't know, and that "the computer tells us to hold it only 24 hours." He said he would have to do some "analysis," to figure out why the res could only be held for 1 day instead of 3.

I asked him if he could just look at the fare, and see if it was indeed 21 days. He put me on hold, and then grumpily came back to the line and said that in fact the fare was 21 days out and that is why they could only hold it for 24 hours. I told him that was fine, and that was all I was trying to find out e.g. why they could not hold it the usual 3 days.

This is why I like to generally book over the web.

A few points come out of this:
1. Is there really a policy that, even if fare allows it, you are not supposed to extend a ticket time limit or rebook flights in the same record locator? I like to keep the same locator to avoid clutter, and because I bookmark them and sometimes email/store in my PDA. If this is not a policy, then maybe he wanted to do it as maybe they have some kind of "credit" each res agent gets for generating a new locator even if they don't sell the ticket? E.g. an agent has some kind of quota of record locators they are supposed to create on their shift, so they "want" to create new records in the system to reflect this productivity?
2. If this is a policy, both the front line and management need to understand that by blinding following all policy for policy sake will not win over customers. I have to dig up that Cape Air mission statement again :), which I posted in a recent thread about Consumer Affairs?
3. I'm sure this person was bothred by my request to keep the thing in one record, and then by me asking about why he could not hold it for 3 days instead of 1. He may have written something in my record beyond what happened, or maybe he is so mad that he will somehow sabotage my record or do something so I don't get my upgrade. This might sound paranoid, but when I worked in the industry, you would see all kinds of remarks in records some of which were completely off the mark.

Also as has been requested on other threads, they should really train the CP Desk staff to handle intl because I think largely you just get dumped in to a general international res queue even when using option 3 on the CP line.