Originally Posted by
Mike Jacoubowsky
The relationship with Ethiopian is rather odd indeed. Then again, Ethiopian may have one of the few IT departments that would look to UA as being something to aspire to. The hoops I had to go through to buy a ticket from them approach legend status. Thought they were purchased on the website (https no less, all seemed fine, including the extra visa security step), then got an email saying they were not confirmed, please give a call. The phone call was confusing, to say the least, but what ultimately came of it was a form they sent me to fill out and fax to them (fax? my business got rid of its fax machine quite some time ago), along with a fax photo of my drivers license and the front & back of the credit card. But they misread the zip code and called back a day later to say my card was declined. And that led to a fraud check by my CC company, which deactivated my card until I called them to explain things. Eventually it all worked out, but... wow... just wow.
Indeed. A year later, UA will happily give you ET flights... but it may neglect to mention that oh, by the way, ET has all these rules about third-party purchases. Yesterday I got an intinerary booked (purchase went through) which includes LH from Frankfurt to Kenya (well, Privatair) and back from Saudi Arabia, with NBO-ADD-RUH on ET. UA promptly emailed me to say that they were waiting for confirmation on the ET segments, and that "This process may take up to 24 hours."
24 hours came and went; I looked at ET's website and quickly found:
http://www.ethiopianairlines.com/inf...rd-restriction
"third party payment with credit/debit card through the internet is possible for individuals other than the card holder. However, for security reasons, the holder of the credit card may be contacted by email to verify the credit card used at the airport or at nearby Ethiopian ticket office for in person verification."
I'm unsure that my flight coordinator's email address is anywhere on my reservation - I certainly don't see it. So I may have to get both of us on the phone with United and/or Ethiopian to either sort it out, or to turn it into an open-jaw itinerary sans the ET segments, and then separately book Kenya-Saudi Arabia somewhere else...
