johnirvine

Around six months ago, I made a one-way booking BER-VIE-BKK in I class on OS230 and OS025 for 16/1/2023. I have recently been informed by M&B that OS230 'has been cancelled' by Austrian and there is no other option to travel to from BER to VIE that day. As a result, I have been strongly pressurised by 3 different Aegean agents to cancel and take a refund of miles and fees.

The problem is that OS230 has not been cancelled by Austrian and I class seats are still available on the flight according to Expert Flyer. Moreover, I class flights are available on all six OS flights from BER to VIE on January 16th. However, the agents keep repeating that 'OS cancelled the flight' and 'the flight does not exist on our system'. I asked to speak to a supervisor but was denied on three separate occasions.

Can anyone perhaps explain what might be going on or suggest how to resolve this issue? I have a similar problem with the return ticket where there is a schedule change for BKK-VIE and M&B are refusing to rebook the cancelled VIE-BER leg. My impression is that there must be some serious issues in A3's relationship with either OS or M&M.

jerry_greece

Hm that's weird. Why can't they put you on an earlier flight? Did you specifically ask for a replacement flight? e.g. OS226 OR OS323?

romans

pretty odd, maybe worth to try twitter team

irishguy28

Doesn't look like A3 can propose *any* flights on the route at present

unusualtravelblog

I don't think that I class availability guarantee any seats bookable through Aegean Miles+Bonus on a Star Alliance partner. I thought I class availibility is only relevant to those who book Miles+Bonus award flights on Aegean/Olympic metal.

johnirvine

I class is actually used by all Star Alliance airlines for standard business class mileage tickets.

romans

well anyway despite to no availability at the moment I would expect to have my booking active anyway, that's why this is really weird. I remember when my VIE-CPH-LAX has been cancelled they rebooked me to VIE-FRA-LAX same day and saw booking class D,D both segment under this booking. Shame that covid came and whole trip cancelled

irishguy28

Yes, you would expect that, but given that they appear to have lost the ability to make any bookings on any airline on this route, it does indeed (as you suggested earlier) hint at some deeper problem here.

johnirvine

There really do appear to be deeper problems with booking intercontinental M&B redemption tickets on LH-Group airlines. It is extremely difficult to get any type of business ticket even when these are wide open in I class for Miles and More cardholders.

I tried once again to reinstate my BKK-VIE-BER booking with M&B and the agent basically said that the VIE to BER leg was cancelled (even though the flight still exists) and they could do nothing. My only option was to get a refund for the ticket since no I class availability was available around my booked date. Again, no access was allowed to a supervisor!

I have, nevertheless, now managed to reinstate the booking. This was done by phoning the M&M Cyprus number and asking the Capetown-based agent to insert my M&M card instead of my M&B card in the booking. The agent could not understand what had happened with the booking and thought that some sort of block had been placed by Aegean. As a result, he made an entirely new reservation and cancelled the existing one. The booking code remains the same but I do not know if there is now a different booking class.

I will now try to change the separate BER-VIE-BKK outbound ticket that is similarly blocked from being rebooked. If this sort of problem is generic with M&B bookings in business class, it will perhaps explain why it is so difficult to use mileage on anything more than A3 bookings. Redeeming large numbers of miles on non-Aegean business fares is, of course, extremely expensive for the airline.

romans

I will soon book VIE-LAX (direct) in business class with A3 miles, really curious about it...

johnirvine

As an update, my BKK-VIE-BER itinerary has now been confirmed by Lufthansa not Austrian on LH6467/6321 codeshare flights. The ticket number was changed and I am now booked in C class (not I) on both flights with a M&M card listed on my passenger details. It also seems that LH-Group are now playing a married segments game with reward and lower booking class business bookings - if I class redemption is available for two separate legs of an itinerary, it does not mean it will be available for the segments when put together.