Originally Posted by
IslandSkies
The only thing we can do is wait for 12 hours from time of booking to make sure the seats haven't cancelled out. The problem is limited strictly to LH/SK and is less about rules than a technical glitch between LH/SK systems and UAs. We didn't used to have the 12 hour rule with them for *A awards, and for LH it doesn't exist for revenue tickets. But for some reason with *A bookings they've been occasionally coming back UC (unconfirmed), sometimes right before the 12 hour mark, and if we issued the ticket before that (or re-issued in the case of changes) LH/SK are turning customers away at the airport because their system shows the space as cancelled. It is a known technical error that has existed for months now and LH/SK say they are trying to fix it but has not happened yet so I guess it's low priority for them.
I booked a few LH awards this week. Of the several agents I spoke with during the process, only one or two mentioned or tried to enforce the 12-hour rule. All of the other agents either didn't know or didn't care. (N.B. Based on the accents of the agents with whom I spoke, the Philippines agents enforced the rule sometimes, and the Indian and U.S. agents never.)
In any event, although some of these flights were apparently ticketed prematurely, several days have now passed and the LH website still shows the tickets as confirmed (when using the LH record locator).
Am I correct to assume this means the risk of a cancellation has passed? Thanks!