Online Travel Booking and Bidding Agencies - Why does Travelocity keep steeling my seats?

I'm trying to purchase a flight for a Finnair-flight tomorrow through Travelocity. Requested fare available at multiple sites, including Finnair homepage. I entered all the details including cc on t-city.com and push "Reserve flights now". However, without any error message I was forwarded to the starting page! Under "My bookings" when I login shows nothing, nor have I received any confirmation email. Worse still, the seats in this fare class are gone on this flight! Not only on t-city but on all booking sites and airline homepage...

So foolishly I try to do the same on a different flight at the next fare. Same scenario again; seats available on all site, I push "Reserve" and get redirected (after a minute or two) to the main page. And the seats are gone!!

Now I am stuck with only expensive fares for tomorrow.. My theory is that t-city.com made a reservation in my name but that payment failed and now they are reserved somewhere. If this is the case, can t-city.com find my reservation and cancel it somehow?

So I called Travelocity and talked to "Patrick"... After a lot of time on hold and frustration trying to explain he could see that I had tried to purchase but that the purchase had not gone through. What he just could understand was when I asked if there was a reservation made for these flights or not. We will never know I guess...

Please continue to follow this thread in the Online Travel Booking Forum.
Obscure2k
TravelBuzz Moderator

Since your res is not making it to the end of the purchase process, TL is not "stealing your seats". What is happening is that there is an inconsistency in the booking engine, so you see a fare as available when it really is not. All sites do a final check at the source to confirm the fare is available for sale. I get it all the time when I want to jump on what looks like a hot price seen on multiple sites and am unable to book it on any site no matter how hard I try or how many times I clear my cache.
If you need the flight, book it at the rate that will sell. If you decide to wait it out, it may take up to 72 hours for the mismatch to clear.
Sorry for the hassle............

Well, after a few hours the seat came back. I was able to purchase it from the AY-site for the original price. "Patrick" assured me everything was cancelled, yet today I received an email saying my trip has changed. Nothing is listed under "My trips" when I login though and the trip-id provided in this email gives nothing.. Oh well, in the end it worked out.