Call
#1
Last night I got notice that today's AA173 LHR-RDU was cancelled due to mechanical problems.
I called the EXP desk as the timings on their MIA protection email connection weren't going to work.
I asked for a UA connection via EWR as AA had no J class (my ticket was purchased I class) on any other flight that was convenient. Either too early too late.
The agent agreed and called UA.
She came back after a few minutes and said the hold times were too long and she couldn't wait.
I offered to conference in the 1K desk with UA as I thought the wait would be better.
She agreed and I called and they talked through what they needed to do. At one point, while UA had us on hold completing the booking, she told me if it took them too much longer she was going to have to release the call.
The United rep came back in the nick of time and gave the locator and we hung up. I stayed on with the AA EXP rep who explained she was going to prepare the ticket and send it over to UA.
Shortly she came back and said the UA record locator was wrong and she couldn't complete the transaction. I offered to call UA back and she said she had spent enough time on this call and couldn't allocate any more time and she was going to put an AA flight back in as protection even though I told her this wasn't acceptable.
Call
#2
I call back and explained the situation. This rep is horrified and agrees to fix the situation. She works on it and says the ticket is all set on the queue for reissue. She is surprised it didn't go through instantly but tells me they are backed up so give it 30 minutes.
Call
#3
I call back as the ticket still shows pending when I check it on united.com with the record locator. This time a gentleman tells me I have the wrong United locator and gives me another one. I ask him how this is possible and he says I must have made a duplicate but in any case assures me nothing more needs to be done. I can just go to UA check in and all is well. I know this simply isn't true. It takes more than AA just calling UA and/or booking a UA flight in their system and just showing up at UA and getting a BP. They have to process something and send it over electronically but if he doesn't even know that there is no point in engaging with this fellow.
Before I call back I enter the new UA locator this fellow gave me and indeed there is a dupe. That leads to me getting the 1K desk back on the line and conferencing in AA with...
Call
#4
This time I get a gem who knows what she is doing. She tells me agent
#1 did call UA and book the record correctly. However, she did not manually put in the segments with the UA record locator. When I talked to the agent on call
#2 , she actively sold new UA flights (rather than showing them passively confirmed with UA with the record locator) thus generating the duplicate.
That is why the e-ticket never processed. This agent, along with UA on the phone, cleared up the dupe, processed the INVOL e-ticket while I waited. UA confirmed all looked good and I was able to check in.
It only took this EXP/6MM 90 minutes to get this done and only because I've had industry training and knew what I was doing.
Someone else would have had to fight it out this morning at the ticket counter with delay and confusion.
Ugh. Buyer beware.