craz

If it was Coach and UA didnt FIM you over in C then the AA agents were 100% correct AA NEVER would have been repaid by UA for the C tkt!

Maybe Y was available when they 1st looked and then it disappeared before they confirmed you in it and didnt check again and issued the FIM for Y but there werent any seats left by then or UA never properly rebooked you and by the time you got to DFW all of Y was taken and AA wasnt gonna put you into C and get paid for Y. I dont blame AA.

Ive been thru this as well over the yrs where the original carrier didnt properly write up the FIM or messed up the rebooking leaving me watching the new flight (Intl) fly into the sunset

pr57001

AA agent in SAT gave us seat assignments and printed AA boarding passes in Y for DFW-MAD flight.

craz

Then it looks more and more that the AA agent who denied boarding blew it

I once had an Award tkt on US EWR-XXX-LAX it went MX and they FIMed over to UA, so off I went only that in the end that UA flight also went MX and UA FIMed me over to DL out of JFK with a pd taxi ride to JFK. As FIMs are booked into Y (a full Y fare) and doesnt have any indication of what the original tkt was. I didnt complain since I earm Miles for that DL flight but I never thought a Free Tkt was entitled to all that, once UAtook it it simply showed up as a Y fare tkt

The agent at DFW simply saw the small amount and thought something wasnt correct, but as long as UA filed out the FIM correctly and rebooked you correctly then AA would have gotten paid from UA! and as things stand now I will say the AA agent was Wrong @ DFW for Denying you Boarding, UA isnt responsible for AAs actions if in fact everything was taken care of properly by UA

hbyerly

Here's what happened to me on a paid business ticket a few weeks ago:

Flying IAD-FRA-BLR (all UA metal), first leg went out 4 hours late (mechanical delay), causing me to miss the connection. In FRA, was rebooked onto a LH flight to DEL - got to the gate and was told "no seat for you."

Back through security, next rebooked FRA-DBX-BRL on LH/EK. Made it to DBX, and Emirates said that my reservation was only waitlisted and they had no room for me on any flight for at least 24 hours.

No UA staff in DBX after their flight goes out, local UA phone number not answering. EK and LH say "not our problem."

It's my opinion that something is now fundamentally broken in the systems that UA uses to communicate with other airlines - or at a minimum the training in how do do so is insufficient.

After many uncomfortable hours in DBX (and going back and forth from T1 to T3 in that VERY long airport), I was able to beg a BB charger from a sympathetic local airport agent, call UA in the US, and was finally moved into an F seat on an EK flight leaving about 20 hours after I landed. Even that took the phone agent over an hour to make happen. UA had to put a LONG text note in the reservation in order for EK to accept the different class. Turnsa out a great deal of that phone time in DBX was making sure that they were using the exact magical wording in the note that would let EK take me in a class other than that originally booked.

Seems to me that this stuff should be more automated, but heck I'm just a CIO, what do I know?

craz

What seems to be happening is anytime a change is done to the Res CO rebooks the whole Itin , thusly if theres a Partner involved that partner will see it as a CX and then a new Res with a new PNR! So it seems in your case the Partner who has 24 hrs to get back to CO to let them know if everything is Confirmed didnt have that 24 hrs and in the end would have NOT Confirmed what CO rebooked, but you were already on your way.

MSPGabe

I've rebooked countless times on OA's since 3/3. US and DL mainly. US has no issue with the rebooked tickets, nor does DL.

Sometimes DL and US complain the ticket wasn't pushed properly, but in every single scenario it has been done right, and the agent at US or DL didn't know how to do things properly.


I am wondering if the OP's Paper Tickets had "Rule 120.20" written on them. In the past when we could rebook on FL, we had to issue paper tickets, but they refused to take them unless "Rule 120.20" was noted on the Paper Ticket.

seawolf

OP stranded at DFW ultimately due to UA fault. What led to this were two mistakes. UA messed up by not reissuing the ticket properly. Instead of issuing a new ticket stating involuntary reroute, it sounds like UA just simply printed the award ticket out as paper and sent OP to AA thus the low award fare visible to the AA DFW gate agent.

Second mistake was SAT AA agent allowing OP to depart SAT with the UA award ticket.

Getting AA seat assignments and boarding pass does not mean you are ok to board. OP's boarding pass would have said flight coupon required since the ticket was paper. Upon examination of paper coupon at DFW, agent concluded OP was not ticketed properly to board. This all goes back to how UA handled the ticket at SAT.

000123UA

Someone at AA almost certainly cancelled the Y booking on DFW-MAD. Before that flight up-gauged this year to a 777 from a 763, it was regularly full - maybe it regularly still is. I'd guess that someone working the flight saw the reservation and just cancelled it out, knowing they needed the space - perhaps you were reserved into an oversell. I agree that had you been properly ticketed on the flight, your reservation would not have drawn attention and you would have had no problems - but there was something goofy about it and they wanted the space for paid AA pax. LH has, twice, found great error with UA's process for rebooking me during irrops onto their flights - in both cases totally cancelling the UA reservations and tickets and just issuing me new tickets, on their stock, and "billing" UA - whatever that means; something is clearly wrong.

Last week a GS colleague on a F award to MEL misconnected at ORD. UA told him they had no space for two days to SYD and refused to reroute him via LHR and BKK on UA and TG because it was an award ticket - the agent at the C18 First Lounge at ORD went so far as to tell him that rebooking into a revenue seat on another airline is "impossible" from an award seat, even for a GS. They sent him back to his origin. So...there's that.

All that said, sorry for your bad DFW experience; AA and UA both do plenty wrong every day and I share your frustration with unprofessional behavior, whether exhibited by pax or employees. Unfortunately, I doubt AA will care any more than UA would care if it didn't accommodate an AA pax - and I doubt there is actually anything actionable from a DOT standpoint. If AA was experiencing their own irrops, I'd fully expect them to accommodate their own pax over a UA reroute, and I know for a fact that premium services would bump a "kettle" out of a seat for me. I guess they value my loyalty, lol.

pr57001

I believe you are correct. After looking at copies of the paper tickets I made at the UC before giving them back to UA, it does not say "INVOL" anywhere as referenced by other posters.

Loren Pechtel

That's what I would have been asking for.

seawolf

Since you have copies, did you get two coupons and were they for the original UA flights? (one for SAT-IAD and one for IAD-MAD)

If so, AA would have collected the SAT-IAD coupon when you boarded SAT-DFW. They should have the IAD-MAD coupon stapled to the DFW-MAD boarding pass which DFW UC would have required you to surrender when they rebooked you.

Also, did the SAT UA agent write/stamped anything on each coupon?

If not, then UA really really messed up beyond belief and this would not even be an systems issue; it's a irrops training issue. The award ticket would have had a non-endorsable / valid on UA or *A only restriction. Without any annotation cancelling this restriction, there's no way AA would have gotten paid. And if that's the case, that confirms my belief that AA SAT agent compounded on UA's mistake and that the DFW AA agent was correct in denying boarding.

milepig

This seems to be not unusual and not only between UA and AA.

On a AMS-LHR-ORD BD/UA itin (booked as UA flights with a BD codeshare). Upgraded Y-C on the LHR-ORD leg. BD messed up badly in AMS and got me to LHR after every flight to the US had left for the day. I spent a very long time at the BD reticketing desk. The person did try, and typed and typed and typed and finally handed me a piece of paper that indicated I'd been rebooked onto the first UA flight the next morning.

I get to my hotel room (Ibis courtesy of BD, but that's another story), and check my itin online and can't find a record for my rebooking.

Call UA and the very helpful person said 'the last thing we see is that you were a noshow on our flight this afternoon." Five minutes later (this was before SHARES) she had me booked on the morning flight AND put it through as paid C so I got my miles back. Woohoo! I don't think the BD agent ever transferred anything to UA and I'm just glad I called.

MSPeconomist

Did you report this to the DOT, including the fact that no IDB comp was offered?

emanon256

I did not. Is there a deadline as it happened almost a year ago? I am still bitter at AA about it.

grahampros

This is exactly probably what happened. What is absolutely clear here is that UA didnt issue the ticket correctly. As has been stated earlier, a ticket needs to be reissued from an award ticket to a revenue ticket for any non partner carrier to take it.


It's also likely true the the AA folks at SAT just let it go, but the DFW agent caught the mistake. Which makes total sense given it's their largest hub, i would expect they are most familiar with these types of issues.

I can understand the OP's frustration, but blame is probably misplaced here on AA.