Originally Posted by
ani90
I am not aware of any other commodity that one assumes has been obtained because payment was either taken, or seemingly taken, and a reciept or email was issued. I am sure a lot of us use internet for other transactions - until we have the goods in hand we dont assume the transaction is complete. Everyone who buys airline tickets knows these are rarely issued instantaneously and that the ticket is issued sometime after the financial transaction is made and this is confirmed by a subsequent email (or the initial email but delayed).
Even when the payment is truly taken, one has still to confirm (by recipet of an e-ticket) that the deal has been completed. Changing award tickets is another situation this may happen as it is possible for waitlists to clear etc and see reservations on line but until you get a new e-ticket no change has happened.
I highly doubt "everyone who buys airline tickets" knows this, considering that most other airlines in the US seem to be able to confirm ticketing and reservation in a single email. Also, as the OP demonstrates, people might forget to realize a ticketing email was never sent (I'm assuming as an elite, they have experience with CO's double-email verification). I've even called CO when I failed to get a ticket after 24 hours, and been told they have no idea why the ticket was delayed, and to call back in another day if it still hasn't been issued. That eTicket required me remembering to call CO twice, which seems fairly extreme for an ecommerce transaction.
I could give a hundred hypothetical examples of how stupid it would be if a company in another industry created a purchase process significantly more complicated than their competitors and failed to notify customers when the transaction failed, but I doubt I'd convince you there's a problem here.