Yesterday (Saturday) I received some tragic news related to my family in Spain. I booked a trip right away to fly from Seattle to Spain to get to them the day after (Sunday).
I used Flying Blue Miles to book a ticket SEA-CDG-Spain. The option arriving the earliest to Spain that I found on the site was flight AF367 (SEA Dep: 5.30pm; CDG Arr: 11.05am) + a connecting flight to Spain leaving at 8.30pm on Sunday. A 10-hour layover -while in distress; otherwise I would leave the airport and go enjoy the day in Paris- is never my ideal, but there was nothing better available.... or was there? The AF Book with Miles site was erratic to say the least, and I was seeing different flights available depending on the browser or whether I was in Incognito mode (Chrome Vs Safari; Chrome at some point stopped returning any results altogether, I assume it must be the cookies?). Hitting refresh would now always show the same options or same fare classes and prices. I was simultaneously looking for options also for my return, and I swear that the engine was sometimes returning options that were not showing 5 minutes later and vice versa.
In any case, I ended up booking the SEA-CDG-Spain flight. I was tempted to just book SEA-CDG (same exact cost of miles) and figure out the short hop to Spain. I could then take a cheap Easyjet to make my layover 5 hours shorter. But I thought to myself that I was getting better value and securing more options by having that 8.30pm flight booked on the same ticket with Air France.
About 3 hours before take-off from SEA, I noticed on the Air France iPhone app that Air France was selling a flight CDG-Spain leaving at around 3pm on Sunday. The app would not let me make any changes to my reservation myself and prompted my to call reservations. I tried calling reservations, but after holding the line for 40 minutes, I gave up.
About 2 hours before take-off, I arrived at SEA airport and talked to the Swissport agents handling the check-in for Air France.
- My first question: "Can I switch to the earlier flight in CDG? I don't care if there's a price to pay".
- => Answer: "No, we cannot make any changes, you need to call Reservations". Explaining that I had just been unsuccessfully on hold for 40 minutes on the phone did not change the outcome.
- My second question: "Can I please get my luggage checked only to CDG?" My intent was to maximize my options available to me in Paris: either book the Easyjet flight; or wait for 10 hours for the flight I was booked on; or hope I could get someone from Air France in CDG to help me change to the previous flight. I assumed that changing to an earlier flight would not be possible if my luggage was already checked in and labeled for the later flight.
- => Answer: "No, we are not allowed to short-check your luggage under any circumstances". Even if my connection is 10 hours? "No, sir." Even if I were staying overnight? "No, sir." See note at the end of this post.*
One transatlantic flight later, here I am now waiting in CDG with the whole day ahead of me. Right after landing, I asked at an Air France counter if I could change to the earlier flight, but I was told "Economy is full, and the ticket desk cannot calculate how much more you'd need to pay to upgrade to Business in a new flight for a reservation made with Miles". I asked if I could retrieve my suitcase, and I was pointed to this information that states that I would need to
pay 275 EUR for the service.*
Before one of the handful of quintessential FTers that are here to remind all of us how wrong we all and how airlines are the modern-day incarnation of the god Hermes, spare the comment: yes, Air France is getting me to my destination according to the schedule of the ticket I booked. Thank you for the insight.
This experience was frustrating on many levels, from the problems ticketing or changing the reservation (issues with the website; unable to modify reservation on the app; unable to get ahold of Reservations on the phone; Swissport check-in agents unable to help) to the issues to get my luggage in Paris. Pissed at myself because if I had just booked the ticket SEA-CDG (without the onward connection) for the exact same price, I would about to start boarding my Easyjet flight to Spain.
*Question: is this normal? There have been instances in the past with other airlines, where I was able to check in my luggage only to my layover airport to access it during a long layover. It had not even occurred to me that this could be an issue. I asked the Air France rep I spoke to here in CDG if it's normal that Swissport in Seattle would refuse to do this for me, and she didn't know the answer to do and whether that's Air France policy at all airports across the world. I get that an airline might try to curb this to avoid hidden-city itineraries, but in this case it was so obvious that it was not what I was trying to do...