travelinmanS

CA knows exactly what happened, there is just a snowball's chance in Hainan they will admit it. :-)

TPJ

I just posted on the 'other Asian carriers forum':

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/22778045-post28.html

BF263533

I assume that this has been reported to the FBI? If the questioning is not being done in advance, you would assume that the FBI would be there at departure or arrival in the US to document and question the first class passengers.

There are major security and criminal activity concerns with this.

Some major defrauding is going on here and major security concerns.

travelinmanS

I would think the FBI cares as much about catching these people as CA does.

controller1

No, my assumption is the FBI has bigger and more beneficial things to do.

DaviddesJ

Nothing could be bigger than the welfare of an FT member!

CDKing

I guess i'm not missing much since moving off CA. Althought it would have been nice to try a new carrier, I flew TG A380 in F before, i thought the CA seat looked more spacious than TG but checking SeatGuru (i know not 100% reliable) it may be a tiny bit smaller at 80in pitch vs 82in on TG and 23in width vs 26.5in on TG. But who knows if they took the measurements the same.

skyvanman

This is disappointing

We'll see what the response is to my reservation which was never properly ticketed and was phantom confirmed.

We've know this for a while, but alliances are dying and this is just more proof of that.

acf1270

Well they finally got me yesterday as well.

Since first reading this thread I have been diligently checking my reservation on united.com every day to make sure that everything is order, and yesterday when I logged in I saw that the reservation had been cancelled. I was ticketed to fly next week JFK-LAX-PEK (UA J - CA F) stopover, PEK-SIN (CA-J) open-jaw destination, then return HKG-ICN-JFK (OZ J - OZ F).

I had been logging in every day not only because I was concerned about all of the CA F tickets being cancelled, but also to check if availabilty opened up on the outbound for something more desirable than CA F (such as NH, OZ or LH). Yesterday at around 2pm, while at work, I logged in for a second and saw that my ticket was still intact and that JFK-ICN-PEK was now available in OZ F and OZ C, but I didnt have time to call at that moment because I was quite busy so I had to wait a few hours to call. When I got home at about 6pm I called UA to make the change, ready to pay the change fee of course, and while I was on hold I logged in and saw that the reservation was now cancelled. I was on hold for a good 20 minutes, so while on hold I had time to check if my original flights were still available. The return flight as well as the intra-asia flights were still available, as well as the new outbound flights on OZ that I saw earlier in the day, but the CA flight was NOT available anymore, in fact expert flyer now showed that same flight as F0. When the agent finally came on the line I quickly explained to her that I did not cancel this ticket and that we needed to reinstate the reservation. She said that the reservation had been cancelled over the phone and that it was documented in the record that the caller claimed to be the actual passenger. I know that most people on this thread have said that their tickets had been cancelled online but she said that it was clearly documented that it was cancelled over the phone. I also did not receive any cancellation email like most others say they have received. She said that it was cancelled at 3:30 pm Central US time, so about 90 minutes before I called.

When trying to reinstate the flights she saw the same thing that I did, that all flights were still available except the UA and CA flights. She quickly grabbed the return flight and the intra-asia flights, and she said she could probably force open inventory on the UA flight but since the CA flight was no longer available we would still have to find some other solution for the outbound. So I then told her that while on hold I had found the JFK-ICN-PEK availability on OZ and she was also able to see it and she immediately booked that for me. She reissued the ticket while I was still on the line, and waived all fees since the CA flight was no longer available and I was not the one who cancelled. I only had to pay $4 for the difference in taxes.

She dealt with the whole situation very efficiently as if she already knew about these issues with the CA F flights being randomly cancelled, so I asked her about it. She said that she is a supervisor and that last week she had 2 similar cases but that those were much harder to fix because by the time those passengers had called in because they realized their tickets had been cancelled that several days had already passed so the availability was no longer there for rebooking. She said that I was very lucky to catch it only a few hours after being cancelled or else my original return flight probably would not have still been available. After reissuing the ticket she said that she was concerned that I still had one CA flight on my itinerary (the PEK-SIN flight in CA J). So she checked for availability other airlines to avoid CA completely and she found a seat on a SQ flight the same day. She then switched me to the SQ flight and reissued the ticket once again.

She then said that for more security she was putting a note in the record stating that agents should not make any changes to this reservation without the caller verifying the PIN number of the mileage plus account. Even though we all know that this is only an issue with CA flights and I no longer have any CA flights on my ticket I still thought that this was an excellent idea. So I asked her to please put the same notes on 3 other future award tickets that I have booked, even though there are no CA flights on any of those tickets either.

So after all of this chaos I agree that I was extremely lucky, considering that I ended up on the exact flights that I wanted and even avoided paying a change fee that I would have had to pay if the reservation had not been cancelled. Those first 20 minutes that I was on hold were probably the most stressful 20 minutes that I have had all year, I would have much preferred paying the change fee than having to experience all of this. I strongly suggest that anybody who has an award ticket that contains any flights in CA F call UA and ask them to put the same note in their record requesting PIN verification from the caller. That wouldn't prevent any online cancellations but at least it would protect tickets from being cancelled over the phone as mine was.

ajGoes

Maybe the increased security UA has implemented is working, to the extent that the perpetrator can no longer cancel reservations online. Calling to cancel instead is an easy-enough workaround, but it's got to be more time-consuming and less reliable for them. Hopefully UA will increase security on phoned-in cancellation attempts.

747FC

What would you do?

Mrs747FC and I are flying Air China on an UA J award from HKG to PEK in November. Flight time is listed as 3 hr. 15 min. on a 777.

Would you keep this flight for now, or would you change to these J options:

1. Eva Air connection in Taipei on 321/777s with a 6 hour travel time, or

2. Thai connection in BKK (747/330) with a 9 hour travel time

3. OZ connection in ICN (321/330) with a 8.5 hour travel time

Thanks for your thoughts....

acf1270

I think these issues are only arising with long haul CA flights in F, so you short flights in CA J should be safe

nihaoa

I would keep the original.

astroflyer

This requirement for a PIN [bolding mine] is a great idea! There are lots of times when I might either intentionally or unintentionally share my record locator with people that I do not want to have the power to change or cancel my flight.

For example, I recall a thread awhile back about the ex-spouse cancelling part of a child's ticket without the permission of the purchaser. Or perhaps I'll e-mail my confirmation to my parents. While they would never intentionally cancel a flight, they're not computer savvy, so I would hate for them to be able to cancel a flight accidentally online. (far-fetched I know).

On the unintentional side, there are plenty of opportunities for people to see or overhear your confirmation numbers: in a phone call to UA in an airport, on a discarded copy of a reservation or boarding pass, etc.

Some minimal security really seems kind of essential. Maybe this is worth its own thread or a message to UA Insider.

greg99

Last week I was required to give my PIN when I had to call in to deal with the "reissue" of my wife's ticket when the GPU upgrade of any inter-Asia leg of a Asia-US itinerary cleared. I don't remember that in the past.

Greg