Ran into a odd Farelock bug yesterday. On Sunday, 4/2, I booked a 3 day farelock selecting to purchase if not canceled at the end of the 3 days. I immediately received the expected email that my farelock was purchased, and my credit card would be charged and my reservation ticketed at 5:00 PM on 4/5. at around 5:00 PM yesterday, 4/3, I got an email reminding me that I have a farelock that will be charged and ticketed at 5:00 PM on 4/4 (not 4/5). I looked online and sure enough the "countdown clock" had me less than 24 hours left, turning my 3 day farelock into 2 days.

I called, got an overseas call center, and as expected initially had some trouble. First, the agent tells me that the day I purchased the farelock counts as "day 1", with 4/3 being day 2, and 4/4 being day 3. So I asked, "What I'm hearing is that a 3 day-fare lock is only 48 hours. Is this what you are really trying to tell me?" She stumbled, but then said yes. When I then asked how come my original confirmation email listed 4/5 as the expiration, which was in fact 3 days later? She put me on hold for about 15 minutes, came back and said she had been working with tech support, and since I booked the initial reservation on 4/1, the correct expiration date was 4/4, and my email stating 4/5 must have been a mistake. I explained her I absolutely did not book on 4/1, I booked on 4/2, I have confirmation emails that my expiration was 4/5 and that is what I'm expecting for my money.

To my surprise (because I was sure I was going to get nowhere with this agent, and maybe not at all), after another 5 minutes on hold, the agent came back and said I spoke with a supervisor, and he has changed it to 4/5. I looked online and sure enough, my reservation was now listed as "on hold" until midnight 4/5 (even a few hours later than initially). I suspect that my reservation will not automatically ticket at the end of the hold period like the farelock would have, but the fact that this was handled pretty well in the end shocked me. Credit to the agent and the supervisor for not giving up on me and doing their best to make it right (or as right as they probably could). Perhaps this is a sign of a little turnaround in customer service.

In summary, I completely lost 24 hours on my farelock due to some odd system error. Keep an eye on those reminder emails.