Originally Posted by dibby

I'm an SE with somewhere over 800,000 lifetime aeroplan miles and had over 400,000 in my account.
My mother's live in caregiver has a son in Australia, and I tried to arrange Aeroplan tickets for them SFO-SYD on United to visit their son - a gift from me, paid for by me, booked personally by me.
I tried to do the booking online this morning, after looking at dates/times over the last few weeks. Finally, we had a substitute caregiver for my mom, so it was go time.

Aeroplan website wasn't helpful this morning (after having to go through the two-factor identification loop 5 times with correct codes, could never get past the log in screen). I called and booked the tickets. Fees waived due to website problems. Received the confirmation email, but her first name was incorrectly spelled (after spelling it out several times). So fearing a problem at the airport with a name mismatch, I immediately called Aeroplan. They couldn't change the name, but the agent said they had refunded the misspelled booking and rebooked it (seats were available). Got the second confirmation with the right spelling, gave it to her, and headed to my SFO-YYC-YXE.

Landed in YXE to a panicky phone call and several text messages from my sister. Caregiver and her husband are at SFO, but United can't check them in because "Air Canada hasn't released the ticket to United.' (Yeah, I know, it's Aeroplan, not Air Canada, but that was the message).

So, called Aeroplan. After a very long hold, agent came back to say that I needed to call compliance in the morning and that my account has been frozen. Can't rebook anything, can't log into aircanada.com to do a flight pass booking, nothing.

Anyone had an experience with this? There's no one to call this time of night that can do anything, they won't make their flight, and Moana is going to miss her grandson's rugby game.

The charges for the taxes for both the misspelled name and the second bookings are still on my credit card and have not been refunded.

Was told that Compliance will open at 9 am, and to call the general Aeroplan number and ask for them.

No call from Aeroplan to ask questions, explain, or let me know they had cancelled the booking. No email. Just leaving 2 people stuck at the airport with no explanation. I'd booked honeymoon tickets as a gift for my godson and his wife before without any problems (yet). Was it because they have non-anglo (et ni franco) names?

(Not to mention the accumulated miles, the nearing million miler, the years of SE status, and EYW).