When doing a plan and book itinerary the system brings up invalid options - i.e. after booking a CPT - LHR - JFK - HKG is you then put in to do and HKG - JNB I regularly get the option of HKG - JNB on cx which is fine, but the next option is usually HKG - LHR - JNB or even HKG - HEL - LHR - JNB - neither of which are valid. I've also been offered for a JFK - GIG the routing JFK - LHR - GIG
Programs: AA EXP, CO Dirt, HH Gold, Hyatt Diamond, VS Gold, CX Gold, Mrs. Pickles travels for free
Posts: 5,859
Availability bug?
I've decided to play around with the booking engine for an upcoming DONE4 I have, and D availability on many segments appears very very poor, much more than in my experience using the phone. For example, I'm trying to book a HKG-CDG segment, and only BA comes up via LHR, for days on end, even though there are 3 CX non-stop flights a day. Same for a BOS-GRU. Only BOS-MIA-GRU comes up, never BOS-JFK-GRU, for weeks on end. Is D availability really that bad, or is this engine kak?
How far ahead are you looking and are you using plan & book option or the plan option?
Plan & book option searches for live availability. If you are looking 11+ months ahead it may be the airline hasn't released any seats into the CRS yet (but other airlines have). Plan option does not search for live availability and thus should find the missing flights.
Programs: AA EXP, CO Dirt, HH Gold, Hyatt Diamond, VS Gold, CX Gold, Mrs. Pickles travels for free
Posts: 5,859
Quote:
Originally Posted by Kiwi Flyer
How far ahead are you looking and are you using plan & book option or the plan option?
Plan & book option searches for live availability. If you are looking 11+ months ahead it may be the airline hasn't released any seats into the CRS yet (but other airlines have). Plan option does not search for live availability and thus should find the missing flights.
It is for a flight in three weeks or so. It may be that it really is that bad, but I am very surprised that there is nothing in D in certain flights for weeks on end. Something is screwy in there, it seems.
You might also try getting an Asia Miles account and checking there for availability. It's bound to be more accurate. CX is famous for holding and not releasing seats it thinks that it might be able to sell itself.
To the extent that anecdotal evidence is worth anything, I fly LHR-HKG several times/year, nearly always on CX, and always on xONEx tix. In April, I couldn't get on the CX flight I wanted. There were seats available, but nothing in A class. When I got to LHR, I walked over to the CX ticket office and asked. They were happy to give me the last F seat for my xONEx ticket, an A class seat. (Of course, I had to shuttle back and forth to the AA ticket counter a couple of times since I had booked my itinerary with AA, but it worked out quite smoothly.)
Endless "Validating Itinerary..." until timeout occurs
I'm hoping someone out there can tell me what I need to tweak. It's been some time since I've played with the on-line booking tool and now I have a problem.
Whenever I try to use it, as soon as I enter the first two cities the "Validating Itinerary..." kicks in but never completes.
Also, the cities on the dispay never change colour (i.e. from green to red)
Same issue whether I'm using "Plan" or "Plan and Book", different cities, and different cabin class
Two stopovers of greater than 24 hours permitted in the continent of origin and only one permitted in each direction within the country of origin. You can only make an extra stop if it is less than 24 hours.
(My italic emphasis.)
There is nothing in the xONEx rules about country of origin stopovers. So is this another bug?
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Update: just checked the web page, which says:
Quote:
Flights and stopovers
You are allowed to take two stopovers in total within your continent of origin in order to get to or from a gateway to begin or return from your international travel of which a maximum of 1 stopover is permitted in each direction in the country of origin.
...
So now, I guess the question is - can something that only appears on a One World web page be a rule, even though it is not in the Technical Rule Sheet?
UPDATE: Latest version of the rule sheet now has this retriction, see this thread
Last edited by pandaperth; Aug 8, 09 at 9:46 pm.
Reason: Latest version of the Rule Sheet now has this restriction
Booking an itinerary with 3 transits through LHR: CPT-LHR-MCT-LHR-IST-LHR-DFW, 2 of the transits are overnight but all 3 are less than 24hrs. The booking tool lists the following UK taxes: UK Air Passenger Duty 181.40 AUD
UK Passenger Service Charge 121.50 AUD .
Thanks for the reply but I'm still not convinced
If I price the sectors out on www.itasoftware.com;then each transit gets charged GBP21.50 which is the UK Passenger Service Charge. GBP63.50 is about AUD114 . If ITA is correct then the Oneworld booking engine is incorrectly charging the UK Air Passenger Duty on every transit. Is there an exemption for less than 24hr transit or has ITA got it wrong?
South African
