Asiana Award Reservation CANCELLED without even telling me!

[vrichard]

Originally Posted by DaveSFO

I do it under the online seat assignment. You can use it either for selecting seats or checking in. My flights are in July and I had no problem selecting seats via this route. I just put in my itinerary information and it comes up. I can even use the 016 ticket number on my eticket receipt. This is my third award reservation with them and I have been able to do this each time.

I'm not sure about the codeshare issue, but it wouldn't surprise me if that is what's causing them to say you have to do it at checkin. I've never booked a codeshare with them so I can't say for certain.

Thanks for the info....
I do have several OZ award tickets, and none of them are 'codeshare' - they are all OZ-operated and with OZ flight numbers - I was just quoting the message the website gave me using the Online Seat Assignment with one of them.

Using your info, I was able to get a seat assignment on one of my bookings - but it wouldn't work with the ticket number route, or the itinerary info as a guest, but it did work with the itinerary info and my Asiana FF#.

[VSIncCEO]

I booked a reward ticket from SFO to MNL
Routing is SFO GlobalFirst to ICN on UA
ICN to MNL Business on OZ (Asiana)

When I tried to do my seat assignment on Asiana it stated my reservation had not been ticketed.

I called the 1K line and was told that everything was fine and that they had an Asiana confirmation number. When I told her that Asiana stated my flight had not been ticketed nor paid for she gave me a different e-ticket number to try- no dice....still couldn't pick seats and Asiana website said reservation not paid. The agent sounding annoyed said I should call Asiana to give them the eticket info.... Nice - I the customer who has so far made 3 Z fare TPAC flights EWR to HKG this year and made 11 TPAC last year on UACO should call. Not the airline who I booked thru.

So after searching for the number, I called int'l long distance (agent didn't have a toll free number) to south Korea. They had the booking reference but UA did not pass the eticket numbers on to them! The agent at Asiana was supremely helpful even though English wasn't her first language and got my eticket info in. She told me had I not called my booking would have been cancelled and I would have been stuck in Seoul and forced to spend many thousands to get a flight to Manila so that I would not miss my connection to HKG.

so make sure you are actually ticketed on other carriers if you book through united.

On another note, I used reward travel this time because I couldn't believe how much Z fares were for end of April. I own a small business and anything more than $5500 is just outlandish. Oddly UA is charging almost exact same prices for J as CX...

I have so many GPU's yet can never find inventory for them.... Unlike last year when I never purchased businessfirst just used instruments to upgrade from e+ and never missed an upgrade with PMCO on their former CO99/98 now UA117/116 flights.

Hence why I am dumping my miles and considering taking my monthly TPAC flights with Asian carriers who offer better hard and soft products for the same prices and many times less. Other airlines will appreciate my $60k annual spend and 200k miles a great deal more than UA does now.

It seems the former CO and UA flyers are equally upset. It seems they took the worst customer visible attributes of each airline and made them into a horror show.

Only thing I can say positive is that when I book a domestic M or higher fare they let me upgrade instantly from my home Airport of PIT.

[weero]

Originally Posted by colpuck

OZ has the world's wost IT system..

Worse than LH ??????

That is terrible.

Originally Posted by Pat89339

..If you book award travel on OZ, you need to babysit the reservation to make sure that UA sends the ticket to OZ or your reservation may be cancelled.

Why would that help? The OP had a ticket number which is a legal title. If OZ doesn't honor that why would they not at any time cancel whatever segment sells well and then blame it on some system glitch?

Originally Posted by jh6000

..was told that even though I had a boarding pass, the ticket had not been issued and I would have to buy two tickets..

Why does that never happen to me on Euro carriers? This would be such a great opportunity for getting some serious cash .

[Boghopper]

Originally Posted by azepine00

I also dont think this is limited to oz - i mentioned smth similar a couple weeks ago in another thread.
I had an award changed by a day for a family member (all ticketed and showing up correctly on ual site) but when he showed up at lx counter in europe they were unable to check him in. Luckily i was reachable and after a frantic call to 1k desk and half hour on the phone they were able to fix it (within 1 h of departure).
I suspect this was a similar issue but dont know for sure. I dont think its a system limitation but rather some agents not very skilled in shares forget some step of the process.
I would definitely check with the operating carrier if you have a recently booked award just in case.

Dunno that it's an agent issue. I booked a R/T on SQ, OZ, Thai and ANA and all worked fine except for the OZ segment, where I had to call them and they manually entered the ticket number.

[tom77346]

FWIW...OZ did not have my correct ticket number on an award flight...UA agent had to call them to correct it. This was after I had seats selected on OZ which I assumed meant that they had the proper ticketing, etc. I'm not sure, since OZ apparently blocks online seat maps after a certain capacity is reached, how else to make sure that a UA ticket is properly set up on OZ. Anybody have any other ways to verify everything is OK?

[LHR/MEL/Europe FF]

Originally Posted by tom77346

FWIW...OZ did not have my correct ticket number on an award flight...UA agent had to call them to correct it. This was after I had seats selected on OZ which I assumed meant that they had the proper ticketing, etc. I'm not sure, since OZ apparently blocks online seat maps after a certain capacity is reached, how else to make sure that a UA ticket is properly set up on OZ. Anybody have any other ways to verify everything is OK?

PNRs are a record of your reservation. Even if you cancel flights, the PNR can continue to exist.

Some airlines don't allow you to reserve seats until after ticketing. Some do. So having a seat reservation is not necessarily a good indicator that the airline is going to allow you to fly.

I think the best advice in this case where there is a known issue is to ring OZ, not rely on any on-line system except for what OZ can see in theirs. If they have no ticket number then they aren't going to get paid and you may not get to fly.

[nachosdelux]

I had a UA award that included a leg ICN-ORD in OZ F.

Did not ticket (OZ segment) the first time, so I had to call UA to fix it.

Checked the itinerary last week, and the segment was moved from Sat to Sun and from first to business. (the last segment ORD-STL was still on Sat)

I ended up finding availability the long way on LX in F.

[KebaNYC]

Here is one more data point for OZ from this past week.

6 months ago we booked JFK-ICN, ICN-NRT, NRT-EWR (UA). I read all of the permanent information on FT before I booked the tickets so I knew to confirm the reservation and get seats and the Asiana PNRs which I did. I also reconfirmed a few days before departure. No problem on JFK-ICN but a few days later I'm standing in line to check in at the Asiana counter and actually telling my wife about this thread and some of the stories that were reported. A few minutes pass and we check in only to find out that the ICN-NRT leg was reserved but never ticketed (according to the agent). I was shocked because I had called to confirm the reservation twice but I never specifically asked "are there ticket numbers for both the JFK-ICN and ICN-NRT legs".

The UA desk didn't open until after our flight was set to leave so the agent let us use the Asiana phone to call UA. After a long hold, the UA agent initially insisted that everything was fine in her system and that the problem was with Asiana. UA said there was no problem with the ticket but eventually figured out the error and resolved it after 1.5 hours on the phone with them. I don't know why it happened but since UA had to fix it from their end I am more inclined to believe that it was there system problem.

Keba

[username]

I booked a MileagePlus award reservation on Asiana a few weeks ago (post-merger). It ticketed fine and everything. Today, when I looked, it disappeared from my list. I could not retrieve it by the locator either.

I called UA. The agent initially said everything looked fine. Then she said wait a minute, something is wrong. I have been on the phone for over an hour now for them to fix the problem. She said something came back from OZ that confused SHARES. I know OZ's system is bad so not sure whose problem it is.

I have another reservation and it still looks fine.

So, keep an eye on your award reservations that have OZ.

[channa]

Yes, this was well documented in another thread.

It seems that SHARES and OZ don't get along.

[love_to_travel]

Strange I was just trying to book award travel from HNL-HKG that included a short flight on OZ, but the website keeps giving me the following error.

! united.com could not price your itinerary. Please call 1-800-396-1751 for assistance.

Should I actually call that number? Or the 1K line?

[cchuang1980]

You definitely have to call OZ once the ticket was issued.
Mine situation is (2wk ago), OZ can see my PNR and TKT# but they are not linked. Thus the OZ CSR have to reassign me a new PNR that can attach to the TKT#. It can be done in minutes and seems that CSR was not surprised the situation.

[EWR764]

This has to be something new post-3/3. In the past, I have had multiple OZ award tickets issued by CO (SHARES) go off without a hitch, including one that was part of a complicated multi-airline itinerary that was reissued and resynced several times.

I suspect this is not a SHARES limitation, but rather a post-integration programming defect.

As a side note, enjoy OZ... great airline. All of my flights have been superb, nearly flawless (except for the fish out of FRA... don't do it ).

[UA-NYC]

Originally Posted by EWR764

This has to be something new post-3/3. In the past, I have had multiple OZ award tickets issued by CO (SHARES) go off without a hitch, including one that was part of a complicated multi-airline itinerary that was reissued and resynced several times.

I suspect this is not a SHARES limitation, but rather a post-integration programming defect.

Actually, there was an active discussion on this issue a few months ago - the issues with SHARES and OZ seemed to pre-date 3/3, if the experiences reported by many others are any indication.

[channa]

Originally Posted by UA-NYC

Actually, there was an active discussion on this issue a few months ago - the issues with SHARES and OZ seemed to pre-date 3/3, if the experiences reported by many others are any indication.

Yes. It also doesn't happen 100% of the time. So a successful experience doesn't necessarily indicate the problem isn't (or wasn't) there.