I am trying to book a ticket for a friend's wedding in LAX area beginning of June. I looked and there are some low fares around 200-205$ each way on the UA code share. I would prefer AC but not at 535-718$ OW.

During one of the software updates during the last week or two, I can no longer see the red eyes UA code shares. The last code share of the day showing on aircanada.ca for LAX-YOW is a 14:00 arriving at 23:59. If I check expedia.ca, I can find the red eyes leaving around 11:15pm or 11:47pm arriving the next day without problem for the same price as the 14:00 flight. I think someone screwed up during the last software update that aircanada.ca now only shows the code shares that arrives during the same day.

I called SE reservation and they see the flight but but would need to charge me the call center fee and suggested that I can tech support to get it waved. I thought to myself, here we go again with the Indian call center but would rather spent the 30 minutes rather than get dinged the 20$ fee since i should not have to pay for a failing of aircanada.com.

The IP phone lines the Indian call center use are tinny and not very good so the agent had to ask me to repeat most things at least twice. Imagine my surprise when I explained the situation and request a transfer to AC reservation but the indian call center rep refused to transfer me to AC reservations since if they cannot see the flight, it does not exist !!!

I explained that aircanada.ca is screwed up and the red eye used to show up but not anymore but that I can see it on expedia.ca and the AC reservation agent can see it. The tech support rep refused to believe me and said that it cannot be since the flights are not on his schedule / system. They are the web services and since it is not available to them as an obvious error, he cannot transfer me. I had to insist to speak to a supervisor when the rep started talking back to me and trying to cutting me off.

I spoke to the supervisor and mentioned the error, that I am SE and I would like to be transferred back to AC reservation. The supervisor refused to transfer me too since the flight cannot possibly exist when it does not show up on their system!!! I was starting to loose it since I have been given the run around for more than 45 minutes now. I can easily book the ticket on expedia.ca as AC numbers operated by United but if my plans have to change, I would have difficulties. I had to reiterate that I am SE member and I am getting upset that aircanada.com is screwed up so that I cannot book the flight I want (which I could on expedia) and the Indian call center is refusing to transfer me. He finally agreed to call AC reservation to check and after 5-10 minutes agreed to put me in conference with AC reservation.

Thus for a simple 15 minute booking with someone compentent for something aircanada.com failed to list now (which was available 2 weeks ago) I am on the phone with the Indian call center for close to 1 hour and another 20 minutes+ with AC reservation since we had trouble hearing each other until India dropped off.

AC exec if you are listening, please fix aircanada.com and/or give SE a better tech support line or free us from jumping through the Indian call center hoops. I am going to start a new project within a month or so and I will either be making a trip to the west coast either weekly or every 2 weeks for up to 9 months. In the off weeks, I might do some weekend trips to Western Canada or US. I probably prefer AC but not if I have to go through this rigamore every time.

From my observation, aircanada.ca / aircanada.com have been very problematic recently....