I had a moderatly-complicated transaction, which I had thought was handled nicely by an outsourced CS agent. Because travel plans had changed for the return part of a trip, I had to cancel out my entire previous itin and rebook (or else the fare would have been much higher), using a new "held" itinerary I had placed on-line.

So far, so good. Took about 20 minutes on the phone, even recorded minute-by-minute notes of the conversation, and was about to report it here as a success story, until...

Later that night, I look it up on-line to apply for upgrades, and it says "Itin not yet ticketed, please call UA etc." I figure maybe it's too early, so I check later the next afternoon. Same thing. Huh?

So I call up customer service again, and, according to this other (also outsource) agent, my ticketing hasn't been finalized at all. The other rep had gotten all my info and said, after the change fee, there would be a $38 credit (in the form of a travel voucher). The new rep says no, it will cost me $12 more (which is actually how I'd figured it would be), and has to get all the credit card info etc all over again.

What happened with that first call? Was there actually a danger that my ticket was going to just go away had I not called back? The reservation did move from being a "held" itinerary to the "not yet ticketed" category, but does that actually mean a whole lot?

Thanks-