jetsetter
Aug 12, 03, 6:59 pm
This has been a new in place procedure for at least a couple of months or so, and I have not read about it on the board yet...
Essentially when you make an itinerary change with an e-ticket, US has what they call a revalidation entry in the computer. You can think of revalidation as the electronic way of "stickering a ticket," or just crossing out the old information and writing in the new. In other words, its very quick, it doesn't care about the money side of things, etc.
The alternative to revalidating an eticket is reissuing it. Reissuing is similar to reissuing a paper ticket, except minus some of the paper. Reissue takes longer, cares about the money, is more particular, etc. You can tell when your ticket has been reissued with the VirtuallyThere itinerary display, because when you look at your e-ticket receipt, you will see a different ticket number each time your ticket has been reissued. Conversely, if your ticket was revalidated you would not see a new and unique ticket number for the revaled ticket.
You might be asking why you care about this as a pax. Well, there are a couple of reasons:
1. When you call res on the phone, it seems to take much longer (keystrokes etc.) to reissue rather than revalidate an eticket. I called once to make a date change on a one-segment itinerary on a fully changeable ticket, and I heard the res agent clicking Next about ten times (no kidding). I asked the agent if this was now a more complex process, and they affirmed that the reissue process is more time consuming and work than the revalidation process;
2. When your ticket is either issued or reissued by reservations, they actually have to queue it to a ticket department or automated queue. Not quite sure which it is. The upshot of this is that they are required to have two hours processing time. Again, since your res agent isn't really actually completed the transaction fully themselves. This means if you are 10 minutes out from the airport on your cell phone for a flight leaving in 40 minutes, the res agent can change your booking, but cannot "reissue" your ticket since you don't have two hours. I believe with revalidation the agent was the one actually revalidating the ticket, so it did not have to go through a ticketing queue and did not need the 2 hours. Some airlines, like CO, allow their res agents to actually fully process and issue e-tickets thereby largely negating a separate queuing of the PNR to a tickeitng department or automated process;
3. It would seem that revalidation would be a system more prone to allowing agents to grant waivers and favors, and conversely fully reissuing tickets would seem to make waivers and favors more difficult.
My understanding is that the "reval" entry is still in the computer, but as a matter of policy, agents are not supposed to use it except perhaps for weather related reaccommodation. It also seems that the airport agents still reval tickets, although perhaps not as much.
I would be curious as to any other inside details on this policy move, and whether anyone else has noticed that it is slower now to process itinerary changes. Also has anyone else run in to the situation where they would not fully change a ticket with in 2 hours of departure?
Essentially when you make an itinerary change with an e-ticket, US has what they call a revalidation entry in the computer. You can think of revalidation as the electronic way of "stickering a ticket," or just crossing out the old information and writing in the new. In other words, its very quick, it doesn't care about the money side of things, etc.
The alternative to revalidating an eticket is reissuing it. Reissuing is similar to reissuing a paper ticket, except minus some of the paper. Reissue takes longer, cares about the money, is more particular, etc. You can tell when your ticket has been reissued with the VirtuallyThere itinerary display, because when you look at your e-ticket receipt, you will see a different ticket number each time your ticket has been reissued. Conversely, if your ticket was revalidated you would not see a new and unique ticket number for the revaled ticket.
You might be asking why you care about this as a pax. Well, there are a couple of reasons:
1. When you call res on the phone, it seems to take much longer (keystrokes etc.) to reissue rather than revalidate an eticket. I called once to make a date change on a one-segment itinerary on a fully changeable ticket, and I heard the res agent clicking Next about ten times (no kidding). I asked the agent if this was now a more complex process, and they affirmed that the reissue process is more time consuming and work than the revalidation process;
2. When your ticket is either issued or reissued by reservations, they actually have to queue it to a ticket department or automated queue. Not quite sure which it is. The upshot of this is that they are required to have two hours processing time. Again, since your res agent isn't really actually completed the transaction fully themselves. This means if you are 10 minutes out from the airport on your cell phone for a flight leaving in 40 minutes, the res agent can change your booking, but cannot "reissue" your ticket since you don't have two hours. I believe with revalidation the agent was the one actually revalidating the ticket, so it did not have to go through a ticketing queue and did not need the 2 hours. Some airlines, like CO, allow their res agents to actually fully process and issue e-tickets thereby largely negating a separate queuing of the PNR to a tickeitng department or automated process;
3. It would seem that revalidation would be a system more prone to allowing agents to grant waivers and favors, and conversely fully reissuing tickets would seem to make waivers and favors more difficult.
My understanding is that the "reval" entry is still in the computer, but as a matter of policy, agents are not supposed to use it except perhaps for weather related reaccommodation. It also seems that the airport agents still reval tickets, although perhaps not as much.
I would be curious as to any other inside details on this policy move, and whether anyone else has noticed that it is slower now to process itinerary changes. Also has anyone else run in to the situation where they would not fully change a ticket with in 2 hours of departure?