Originally Posted by
cmurphy2005
I eventually booked a DONE4 ticket directly on the OW site, so ticketed via Qantas, as it was not overly complicated. Then came recent events and my QR flights from OSL to DPS via LHR and DOH were cancelled. I was rebooked on an impossible connection, where the LHR-DOH flight departed before the OSL-LHR flight that was supposed to precede it.
I called Qantas to rebook, keeping the original OSL-LHR, and then asking the agent to book me LHR-HKG and then from HKG-DPS the following day, with an overnight in Hong Kong. He was knowledgeable enough, but told me that there was no D class availability for most of that day's LHR-HKG flights, including the one I wanted to travel on that matched up with the BA783 from OSL landing at 18:30. However, all that day's LHR-HKG flights have D class as per ExpertFlyer, and I'm also able to price up my desired itinerary just fine on the Oneworld tool today.
Is there any trick to requesting the flights to get him to see the same availability? Perhaps asking him to search for OSL-xLHR-HKG, and then a separate HKG-DPS? Or any other recommendations?
As has been discussed a lot, an unwelcome development in the past couple of years is the implementation of additional limitations on availability beyond what is visible using Expert Flyer or similar tools. It's clear that airlines have the ability to impose availability limitations based on the point of commencement/origin of an itinerary. There
might also be an ability to limit based on the type of fare (this is murky). This is on top of the usual married segments limitations. You can verify that this is occurring by asking an agent to check availability of desired flights in a new record. If the flight has plenty of inventory in a new record but none in your record, that's proof it is happened. The online booking engine seems to ignore this, but it's unclear what would happen if you booked a new record using it where some segment had no availability in your itinerary. It might get ticketed or the segments might come back unconfirmed and be a problem.
Unfortunately, there's not much you can do other than book alternate flights or keep those segments open and hope your desired flights become available closer to departure.