Adam Smith

​​​​​​Bookings don't get cancelled instantly. Based on my extensive research, there is some sort of time period to remedy the duplicate bookings, which appears to be correlated to the length of time until the flights. For instance, a flight 6 months out might give you a week or two to resolve the duplicates. A flight a week out might give you a couple of days. A flight 3 days out might give you a day. (I don't know the exact thresholds, just trying to illustrate the concept).

I understand from talking to res agents/concierges that when Amadeus detects a duplicate booking, it adds a note to the PNR. Something like "Duplicate booking with [PNR ABC123]. Remedy by 3PM Montreal time October 2, 2023 or system will automatically cancel". If you want to increase your confidence level, you could phone in and ask them to check the file for any notes like that.

The note will be added to all bookings deemed to be duplicates, although it will not say which booking will be cancelled. The dupe detector also doesn't always pick these things up right away - 12 hours after booking, there might be no note, and two days later, it might be cancelled. So I don't know whether the dupe detector only runs every 24 hours or something like that.

But, as always, it's worth noting this function is inconsistent. It might flag YYC-YUL-YYC round trips on back-to-back days (perfectly feasible to fly and not in violation of any tariff rule) and then not even notice blatantly conflicting YYC-YUL, YYC-YOW, and YYC-YVR flights on a different date.

The dupe detector is indifferent to method of booking - cash, points, flight pass credit, it doesn't matter.