US Airways Dividend Miles (Pre-FlightFund Merger) - Major Problem - Today's return flight ticket was cancelled by US Airways

I fly on Thursday from BOS to DCA on the US Airways 7:30 pm shuttle and sat by the MA Governor Mitt Romney. Last night the US Airways website would not allow me to print my boarding pass like I did for the outbound flight. Upon calling US Airways I learned my return flight has been cancelled by US Airways because I was a "no show" for the 1st segment of my trip on Thursday. They were not helpful at all at the CS center and refused to let me speak with a supervisor. All they said was to get the airport a few hours before the flight and try to speak with someone and maybe let me on the flight. Obviously this an FAA violation as the pasenger manafest for Thursday's flight was incorrect. I doubt they will admit to their mistake.

What should I do to assure I get home on my flight this evening?

Thank you in advance for your help

Take your boarding pass from the first flight to the airport. They should be able to see from that.

Obviously this an FAA violation as the pasenger manafest for Thursday's flight was incorrect. I doubt they will admit to their mistake.

What should I do to assure I get home on my flight this evening?

Thank you in advance for your help



Mmmmm. More likely a computer brain spasm than a technical violation.

Do you still have your BP from the outbound flight? If so, then this is easily resolved over the phone/ at the airport.

If not, then I would try the following cascade of information (in a positive manner);

1. Identify to the res agent your seat assignment last week.
2. State that Gov Romney was on the flight, info that would not generally be known.
3. If you are doing this at the airport and you have other evidence including, but not limited to, a parking receipt at your originating airport, present this as evidence of the time of your prior travel.

I have had this happen with both US and DL in the past. US was able to reconstruct the record in a reasonable manner, although I did lose my seat assignment.

. Upon calling US Airways I learned my return flight has been cancelled by US Airways because I was a "no show" for the 1st segment of my trip on Thursday.


What probably happened is that you were "noshowed" in error. This mostly happens when someone stands by for an earlier flight (and an error is made by the person checking you in), but weird things can happnen with internet boarding passes. In the last week I've seen about three instances of the "CKIN" status dropping off somone who checked in on the net. Unless this is caught by airport staff, the boarding control system will consider the customer a no show. This will result in cancelation of the return segment and, depending on the fare type, nasty things happening to the ticket as well.

While the carriers love internet checkin (no expensive kiosks or really expensive humans involved), there are glitches. (I've not bothered trying to find out if there is a correlation between how early the net check-in is done and the likelihood of a glitch. Maybe I'll inquire with the gurus at IS). If you have time before the flight, it might not hurt to verify your check-in status with an agent before you board. Yes, I can hear some of you saying that defeats the whole purpose of net check-in. But once you are past the security checkpoint, there are few lines at the gate check-in desks. [They really are not "podiums, you know. A poduim is a raised platform upon which the speaker stands. But I digress].

The three or four "dropped" net BPs do not represent a very signifcant number, compared to all the net BPs I see. Unless one of them is yours.



Side note on internet BP's: Please trim them where indicated and make life just a little easier for the ticket lift agent. No scissors or cutting implements allowed in the boarding area you know. And the net BPs have to fit in the ticket lift envelope designed for standard BP's.

Side side note: Colored paper is OK, BTW. And I have seen BPs that people have printed on phot paper. Once for a family of six! Well, it's their money.

This happened to me about a year ago. I went stand-by, they had me as a no show, but I was able to clear this up over the phone with a good agent. She even upgraded me! If I were you, I'd call back and try again with a different agent.

About a year ago I had checked in for a flight at the airport the night before, and then missed it the next morning. When I called res to change it, they told me that my eticket coupon status was "flown," and not just "ckin." They insisted over the phone that there was no way that a gate agent could make a mistake reconciling a flight, I remember the lady said "these things don't just happen." I was told to go to the airport and I expected that it would take a long time, but they actually were able to very quickly remove the flown status off the record and rebook me for the next flight.

Also let's say you are flying Monday on the 7AM shuttle, and returning on the 3PM shuttle. The day before, you check in for both flights, and print both boarding passes.

Then you call at 6:30AM, and change your outbound flight to the 8:00 A.M departure. Because of the way US res now handles ticket changes, they will reissue the entire ticket, rather than "revalidating" it. You can see this on the Virtually There web site under e-ticket receipt. Evry time you call res and make a change, even if no fee is involved, you will see a new ticket number issued by XTM (tickets by mail.) So even though you checked in for your 3:00 PM return flight, since your ticket was fully reissue it would lose the ckin status. This happened to me once but I guessed it would happen before I got to the airport and re-checked in, but only someone on FT who follows these sorts of things would ever think to that level of minutia detail. I still don't know why res uses "reissue" instead of "revalidate" because say you just change the times of your flights you have a new ticket number for each change. I have had up to 4 ticket numbers on simple 2-segment shuttle itineraries. Seems like a real waste of ticket numbers :).

I do agree that someone should come up with paper for people to use for the IBP's especially for frequent travelers. It would be easy to keep a stock of this "special paper" at my home and office. I have a way I fold them which is not too bad, but still its an 8.5x11 sheet of paper. I did not know they actually keep the eticket BP's, I thought maybe now they would just retain real paper tickets but throw away et bp's.

About a year ago I had checked in for a flight at the airport the night before, and then missed it the next morning. When I called res to change it, they told me that my eticket coupon status was "flown," and not just "ckin." They insisted over the phone that there was no way that a gate agent could make a mistake reconciling a flight, I remember the lady said "these things don't just happen." .



They do. Not often and they shouldn't, but they do.

Take another airline instead. The delta shuttle is just as good. I bet they don't cancel your return.

In the past the Delta Shuttle along with the US Airways shuttle operated hourly service in the BOS to DCA market. However, DL Shuttle pulled out of this market. DL Comm Air and AA Eagle regional jets now fly the route along with US's Boeing 737's. However, neither AA or DL offer an hourly service.

I did fly extensively in the past on both DL Shuttle and US Shuttle when DL was in that market. The chief advantages to DL Shuttle were that they offered more premium snacks and beverages during off peak times. For example, DL Shuttle stocks bottled Sam Adams beer. US Shuttle offered better delli meal snacks on lunch/dinner flights, and they also used to feature the Fox News Now news program on week day flights.

I am interested today in comparing the service of AA/DL/US, and I will try to post a trip report.

However, back on point, any airline can and does make e-ticket reconciliation mistakes. Particularly since the original poster flies evry week I'm sure the airport will not give them any trouble. Res agents typically do not have the same level of computer access to change around ticket status coupon data, etc. The airport from what I understand uses what they call "native Sabre," which is kind of like operating at a Dos or Unix command prompt? Where as in contrast, res agents use some "souped up" point and click Windows version of Sabre. While the res system might be easier to learn, it probably has far fewer advanced capabilities and sort of tips and tricks that an avid user gets to know. As an analogy sometimes people working at the Dos or Unix command line on a computer know arcain comamnds and can actually do things faster than someone pointing and clicking a million times. I know I still use Dos quite a bit myself, and I prefer command line with many applications. But to learn command line takes more time and skill. The airport has access to special Sabre commands that are probably either not available too or not known by res agents. The biggest worry you have is you will need to get to the counter a bit early, but surely they will take care of it for you. This will probably happen to you once a year :).

Take another airline instead. The delta shuttle is just as good. I bet they don't cancel your return.

I've had problems such as canceled trips on AA and other airlines; US Airways isn't the sole culprit.

My Report On Delta Comair DCA To BOS flight. (http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=61434&referrerid=1333
)

aaflyer80 - How'd you make out on your return flight? Have any problems?

Just curious,
Chris

I had something like this happen to me on a flight RDU-PHL-FRA, where the agent in RDU gave me someone else's boarding pass with the same last name. (I was a pretty new flyer then, and pre-9/11, so no one noticed.) Only when we got on the plane and went to the same seat did anyone even catch it. They went back and told me that I was properly checked in though I never got a boarding pass, and just told me a seat to take. When I got to PHL, I ran over to A (only one A back then) and went to get my FRA boarding pass. Without thinking, the agent told me my reservation had been canceled because I didn't check in from RDU. Obviously he knew that was wrong, and re-made all my reservations and gave me paper tickets for the remainder of the flights. They actually had to hold boarding on the 330 for a few minutes as I was the last person to board the plane after he fixed and rebuilt my entire PNR.