l etoile

For a couple of months I've held confirmed F tickets for flights within China on CA. Today I arrived in Beijing to fly the first of the tix. I was first told there was no reservation. I produced the res and was told there was no ticket no. I produced that and was told by a sup that it didn't exist, by a manager that it was a standby ticket and finally by a nice agent who first sold me a ticket for $2000 US that it was there. She canceled the paid ticket and put me on a flight in F, albeit later since I'd now missed the original.

I'm now told the return may exist but in Y, though UA shows confirmed F and that's what they took the miles for.

UA says this is a constant problem with CA - if they can sell your seat they will and claim your ticket never existed.

Anyone else dealt with this? What did you do? My plan for now is to hope CA in the US will be honest and confirm the res and assign the F seat. Am eager for any other ideas though.

LAX

Thanks for the warning. Note self to avoid CA on all *A award tickets. Good luck on your return!

LAX

SKRan

Normally when an award reservation is put in, the operating airline will allow time before it's ticketed.

In your case, it's very likely that UA delayed the e-ticket issuance. When have you booked it and when did you get your credit card charged for taxes?

For CA, SQ and NH - the limit is usually 72h. European and American carriers allow longer because there are less demand.

CA will indeed sell the seat to someone else if your e-ticket status doesn't become 'issued' after this ticketing deadline.

And because UA and UA flyers rule the world, please use your power to make CA and every *A member to allow longer time so we can all think!

FTMucGer

He said that he had a ticket number, so this is a completely different issue. I would guess a person with more than 15k posts can distinguish between a reservation and a ticketed booking.

l etoile

Thank you. Yes, it's been ticketed for at least two months. I called UA twice to gather some more information and both agents said it's an ongoing problem with CA that they will try to deny your ticket ever existed even with a ticket number. In my case they would have sold me new tickets had a young agent not "found" the ticket that other agents, a supervisor and two duty managers denied existed.

I don't know why UA tickets these knowing this or why they're allowed in StarAlliance.

The one thing I've wondered is if I could have got paper tickets. I would
recommend trying that to anyone trying to book a CA award.

The other thing I wondered is if there was a bribe expected. The duty managers clearly saw the ticket, but made up bizarre excuses.

Ari

Yes, I have done that before, but I think there had to be a paper ticket in that case for some reason-- perhaps FM was involved.

It also seems that CA has this problem when tickets involve other carriers. I haven't seen this problem with CA-only awards.

kittiyut

Thank you so much for your original post. [inappropriate content removed] I'm glad I came across this as I have just used my partner's miles to book biz seats from HKG all the way to PDX and return. If you don't book nearly a year in advanced, forget about getting direct HKG-SFO on UA. On the outbound, the only sensible routing was on CA going HKG-PEK-SFO. Fortunately, on the return I manage to get on OZ. My partner didn't like the fact that I'm flying CA - safety concerns you know! It's either CA or do an over-nighter in Osaka - flying NH connecting with UA.

I have "issued" the ticket (e-ticket), paid the tax (quite low - only US $63), and selected seats. Now I am so worried, should I have UA issue me a paper ticket instead, just in case? Can you do paper ticket just for the CA portion?

Since my flight starts from HKG, should that be a bit safer than starting from PEK where there's a chance that the check-in agent would want a bribe?

Ari

As a technical matter, a single coupon of an ETKT can be printed without printing out the whole ticket. I have had it done twice.

Rather than playing culture speculation, I'd check the operating hours of the United Ticket desk in HKG with your departure time on CA. If the UA ticket desk is open when your flight departs, you can have them print out the CA coupons if there is a problem checking in. I imagine they are familiar with this problem at this station.

daron4000

Recently flew on a UA issued CA award within China and had no issues. Even was moved onto an earlier flight, even though at checkin the flight was F4 O0. So YMMV. Or maybe because I can speak Chinese they didn't want to start any shenanigans?

dmodemd

Something I recommend, that i do, is to confirm the ticket with the operating airline after it is ticketed with them. Call their US reservation line and confirm their record locator and ticket number (and confirm/choose your seat). Do it again as you get closer to the flight or in country at an airport.

My wife is Chinese and is very good at doing this and knows these type of things happen. She also knows to get a PAPER RECEIPT for EVERYTHING. It is funny, but every time we go to the airport on a Chinese flight, she makes a special stop to a customer service desk to obtain a paper receipt (with the red official stamp). There was one time it came in very handy.

CAPT Tee

Would it help after booking the ticket with UA, get partner airline's PNR number and get a print out from partner airline's website to aviod partner airline claiming UA never issued the ticket?

mike_L

Personally, I doubt that there's any bribe thing in this scenario.

Last month I have a seat issue in PEK with a paid ticket issued 4 months ahead of travel. Worse, the seat was changed to a non-*A carrier first and changed back to CA within 18 hours on the day of travel.

CA could not find my seat. Then I went UA desk to have a paper ticket be printed. They still could not find it, then UA desk called the manager on duty, who also checked another manager, and then they issue the BP.

I guess that the easist in this situation will be talking to the UA desk at the airport.

PTahCha

Friends don't let friends fly Air China, period.

I had a revenue ticket, complex itinerary with portion operated by CA. The original routing was ULN-PEK-YVR-PDX, with YVR-PDX portion operated by Air Canada Jazz. I misconnected in PEK, and the bottom line is that they refused to 1) reticket me beyond YVR; 2) refused to rebook me on any other *A carriers, including an earlier UA flight to SFO; 3) refused to pay for lodging because it was weather-related issue, even though I had to overnight in PEK. After 4 hours of negotiation in Mandarin Chinese and English, we managed to settle on PEK-SFO-PDX, on CA to SFO and AS to PDX.

The in-flight experience was mediocre at best. The fine wine selection in CA first class (the purser offered me a glass) was a Chinese cabernet. He mentioned that many customers did not like it as much as the previous selection, which was Woodbridge by Mondavi .

You're assuming the partner's website works and has that capability.

mahasamatman

It's not just CA, and it's not just award tickets. I had basically the same problem with a paid ticket on SQ a couple of years ago (they cancelled their part of a Circle Pacific), though luckily I cleared it up a couple of weeks before travel. But SQ is on my blacklist now.

l etoile

Accidents and errors may happen, but after hearing from two UA employees/ sups that this is common and that they'll deny boarding on an award if they can sell the seat, I'd say the conclusion to never fly CA is wise. It's just unfortunate UA books these knowing there are frequent problems and not sharing that info (or better, refusing to deal with CA - I can't imagine some of the other partners putting up with this). I had all the proof of an eticket - locator and ticket numbers - but it was only through persistence that I found one out of five employees who admitted it was there. A sup took her off position before letting her print out confirmation of my return.

I'm curious if I'd been stuck for the $2000 or if I would have won a credit card dispute.