Problem using MCO at YYZ with AC
 

O.K. today I went to the AC ATO in terminal 1 at YYZ to pay an add collect for a ticket to Hong Kong this coming week so I can fly J class.

Now before I share an excerpt from the letter I'm shooting of to AC's Lawyer let me mention that I have had numerious bad treatment experiances with AC staff in YYZ since one time an agent saw my wife was of Indian Descent and refused us service after she had already compleated checking us in (by saying she couldn't take our bags), when I walked away with Tickets, boarding passes,Upgraded seats, and Baggage Claim stubs in hand, she witheld our bags, and got a supervisor to down grade us. I then sued AC.
Since then the moment one of the agents who "Knows Me" either sees me or gets a call about me the DO NOT SERVE flag is raised!

HERE'S THE LETTER EXCERPT.

on January 7th, 2001 I approached the Ticketing Counter at Toronto Airport Terminal One, at about 2:00 PM. I presented the ticket I was holding (PNR#XXXXX) and was prepared to upgrade the ticket to a J Class ticket paying the additional collection.

I Presented the Ticket, and 3 MCO's issued by Mexicana Airlines "FOR FURTHER TRANSPORTATION ON ANY IATA CARRIER" to the agent the total value was $3,055.00 CDN. I also presented an AC MCO for further transportation in the amount of $350.00 U.S. The agent consulted the agent besides her and they came up with a rate of about $450.00 CDN for the $350.00 U.S. MCO. This seemed very low to me and I questioned the rate they were using, I was told a rate of $1.35. I then pointed out that the bank buy rate was $1.50 more or less. These agents informed me that the rates were set by Terminal 2 every week. I left the MCO's and Ticket with the agent, and told her I would call Reservations verify this and she could work on the ticket while I did so.

I then did call the Elite Reservations Dept and spoke with a very helpfull agent who confirmed the rate was $1.51 and notated it in my PNR. When I returned to the counter I found the agent on the phone, and she returned to me and presented my original documents, She then told me in a rather nasty tone that they could not accept my documents. I asked her to explain why, and She told me "I was on the phone to the Supervisor at Terminal 2 and they've had trouble with you before, we will not take them" I asked her the name of the Supervisor and she refused to give it out. I asked her for her name and she told me a Ms. A.

I then went to speak to a Supervisor, and spoke with a woman by the name of M. I informed her of the above situation and asked her to rectify it. She then informed me that she could accept my AC MCO but only at $1.35 but could not accept the MX MCO's. She informed me that AC could never accept an MCO from a different Carrier. I then presented other AC MCO's to her and told her I would pay the add collect with those, She then snatched up the MCO's and went into the back office for over 1 hour. I was with my young daughter and after 30 minutes I requested about 7-8 times(through other employees) for her to return my Documents as I wished to leave and submit the documents to Passenger Relations.

One Hour later this woman came out with my Ticket and informed me that I could have it back, but the MCO's were property of Air Canada, and she was instructed by the Supervisor of Tarifs to Seize them!
I of course requested to know why, I was told that "they did not have the original Passenger Receipt attached to them". I requested and was provided a photcopy of the MCO's!

First off I would like to address the fact that Air Canada now has refused me service in the class of travel which I have desired to travel in, and in which I was prepared to pay for. This is in my opinion a very serious Violation of my rights.

Secondly the Supervisor had no right to take my MCO's they are not the property of Air Canada, they are MY PROPERTY! The MCO's do have a condition on them that the accepting office may gain authorization from the issuing office before accepting them. However a Seizure is above and beyond that! Furthermore this agent wrote on all of the MCO's "NOT VALID WITHOUT ORIGINAL RECEIPTS YYZTRAC 07JAN01 ML". Obviously the proper proceedure would have been for her to take photocopies of the MCO's, return them to me, and invite me to ticket on the day of the flight after authorization had been gained!

I would like to point out to you the absurd reason she has given me AND CLEARLY WRITEN ON THE DOCUMENTS THEMSELVES. When a ticket is reissued, and 2-3 MCO's are issued along with the ticket How then does the agent ATTACH THE ORIGINAL RECEIPT to BOTH the reissued ticket and to the 2-3 MCO's?? Please explain how one document can be attached to 3 or 4 individual documents, especially one for air travel, and the others to buy other air travel? Furthermore you can see that one of the MCO's was issued by that very office (YYZ) it's self, and another was issued in PAR with the very document I was trying to pay the add collect on!

END.

I will mention also that 5 MCO's were issued 3 weeks ago when in MEX by AC for a ticket that was exchanged and the residual value was given back to me in the form of an MCO.

Tomorrow I will be on the phone with AC and
the Ombudsman I am so Mad. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/mad.gif

I kept my cool this time but with the recient discussion of Counter Rage I thought that I might point out that sometimes what these AC employees do and say is so ludicrous I think they deliberately attempt to provoke passengers!

I also really wonder how AC can have staff working at the Airport that don't know the true exchange rates, that are in the computer set by BSP (not AC), and also don't know that they can accept an MCO from another Carrier if it's payable to AC or open!

By the way what do you guys feel would be fair compensation for this treatment and waste of my time, both at the Airport, and now doing major followup phone cals to get my MCO's returned to me? (after they've been rewritten of course!).

Fair compensation for this treatment (just my opinion) would be two systemwide upgrade vouchers with no expiry date.

You said you anticipated problems when you posted last week in response to the Winnipeg situation. And without prying into your personal affairs as to how you managed to accumulate so many MCOs, it is next to impossible to ascertain why AC has taken the position it has. (Should we consider it racist, I don't know. That is your basis for this agent's attitude towards you. It sounds extremely bizarre behavior to me.]

All I know is that whenever I buy airline tickets, I use my credit card. So whenever I have changes, my card is credited with the original charge (less any cancellation fees if applicable) and the receipt credit note is clipped to the back original of the initial ticket purchased. I then get my replacement ticket using the same, or another, credit card.

Cash transactions, and those originally handled by travel agents, are the ones where I can see MCOs being used. As well as problems arising on several fronts: MCOs have become a major means of circumventing currency laws and are now commonly used for money laundering purposes. Anything issued in Mexico is sure to raise a flag. [As for the exchange rate, that's a whole other matter which does not sound defensible if you were not offered the prevailing current rate.]

As I say, without prying into your personal practices, it is impossible for us to comment on the response you received from AC. My main question would be how you came by more than $3,000 in MCOs issued in Mexico? But that is none of my business, though I suppose it could be AC's. Particularly if they were multiply issued, cumulatively assembled MCOs, and had no original ticket vouchers affixed to them as you readily admit.

Shareholder,

I anticipated problems at YYZ due to the past problems I've had with service at that airport, and the snowball effect from the denial of service 2 years ago I made mention.

As for the MCO's not all 9 were issued in MEX. only 5 were and one was only for $19.00
they were issued as residual value on a exchange ticket 3 weeks ago. Knowing I was going to fly soon, I choose that rather than a refund to be sent to AA and then back to myself which could take 2-3 month to process.

As for lacking the Original Ticket Receipt, that goes on the reissued Ticket.
If you have a ticket worth $3,000.00 and it is traded for a $1,000.00 ticket and 2 MCO's are issued for $1,000.00 each now you have 3 documents from the original one document. How then can you put 1 receipt on 3 seperate documents?

Besides that remember it was AC Agents who wrote these documents up!

Unfortunately my credit has had past problems and I have only 2 cards with very low limits, or I would do as you.

As far as the money laundering, I must respectfully disagree. MCO's can only be used for Further Transportation or Excess Baggage. They can never be exchanged for cash, and they must ALLWAYS be kept in the same currency as the original document.

If someone has a ticket in Cuban Pesos or Indian Rupiees it stays in that currency!

I also feel your comment about not being offered the Bank Buy Rate is as you state not defensible. However I also think that an agent that refuses to serve a Passenger without just cause also is!

So you appear to be in the same situation the fellow from Winnipeg was in: consolidating expired MCOs into new ones with longer validities than intended when they were issued. That certainly is a lightening rod in view of the CTC decision.

As to not having the original ticket receipt [since it would have been attached to the reissued tickets], I can somewhat accept your explanation. But I would have expected you can bring those receipts along too, removing them from the reissued tickets. Unless you have disposed of them, which would not be a wise thing given Revenue Canada's 5-year receipt rule.

To me, it sounds like you have been taking advantage of extending the life of these MCOs by rolling them over, which may have been done for you as a courtesy -- as it was for the fellow in Winnipeg -- but which is not permitted under the rules. You know their validity is for one year from date of issue, as are airline tickets. You travel enough to have used them on other flights within the period of validity. I appears you got yourself into this mess playing loose with the rules.

I suggest you also write the CTC as well as the others on your list. You may be barred sooner than you think

I do disagree with AC's policy of not having an employee wear a name tag, or provide their name to a customer. If this is indeed a policy or just a practice.

By the way, you never did mention the result of your suit -- to the Human Rights Commission? -- on the last matter. Or is it still before the court or tribunal?

Again, I do not wish to try, but you have raised the matter...

All other things being equal, I would say that fair compensation is restoration of the MCO's to you, and a small amount for your inconvenience--a few hundred $.

That presumes, of course, that the airline's version of events does not differ signficantly from yours.

Shareholder.

No my MCO's were not consolidated!

Do you actualy read before giving an off the cuff opinion/remark? I clearly stated that the first 3 MCO's were issued by MX, 5 of the 9 AC MCO's were issued last month in MEX for residual value from a ticket reissued.
One MCO was issued in Paris for the ticket I was trying to upgrade! How do think I was consolidating them?

Please be aware that MCO's have a Max Value of either $350 or $750 (U.S.) Each therefore a refund of $1700.00 U.S. would require 3 MCO's to be issued!

I respect everyones opinion yet I would ask that you read and analize what is being said before jumping to conclussions.

May I ask you a question? Why is it you constantly defend AC on this forum, I take it that AC can do no wrong in your eyes!

AC*SE

well I'm glad you feel I'm entitled to something.

Obviously $200.00 would compensate me for the time wasted at the airport, and writing a letter to AC's Lawyer.

However don't you feel that compensation for the harrassment I received is also in order?
Remember AC staff has refused to sell me a ticket I had a reservation on when I presented valid payment for it, then they seized my property!

As for any difference of opinion the agent wrote "NOT VALID" all over the MCO's before she copied them for me, kinda hard to give a different story now.

The fact is either this agent was not properly trained and went crazy on me not knowing the proceedures in which case she should not have done so, or she deliberatly had something out for me!

I have a question regarding MCOs - I have one due to an oversold flight - I was bumped and given a $300 MCO. Do I still need the original ticket to use the MCO??

Thanks

A couple of things come to mind:

- You do not need the receipt of the original tkt in order to use an MCO, as long as the original ticket # is cleary writen on the MCO.
- The MCO must still have its receipt portion still attached.
- Question: Were the original tickets issued using a corporate account/credit card or travel agency check as payment for the tickets?


- "Knowing I was going to fly soon, I choose that rather than a refund to be sent to AA and then back to myself which could take 2-3 month to process." -

Question - Were the above tickets issued by AA on 001 ticket stock?

Just wondering if any of the above would have resulted in this mess.

Cheers, EMP

PS. Even though you were given the MCO's, they still are AC's property, as are any negotiable documents issued by them.


- Were the original tickets issued on 016 ticket stock?

Sorry I'm fairly new in air travels... what is a MCO? It sounds like a airline issued credit note from reading the posts above. When is it ususally issued? My past experience from changing a reservation is to submit my ticket to the travel agent for an exchange for a new ticket plus the penalty fee. For refundable tickets, you get the money back... So when is MCO needed usually?

Sorry that I ask this silly question... but after reading 10 posts regarding "MCO", I am really curious to what it stands for.

MCO stands for Miscellaneous Charge Order. I believed that they are issued when you refund a ticket for money which you did not use a CC to buy or in some cases where the fare drops after you buy a ticket and the airline will issue you one of these for the difference minus the $75 service charge.

Pardon my not posting this sooner, but @home went down as I was originally attempting to post this response earlier today.

I am sorry if I misread certain details of your two posts, but the 2-year reference in your second one led me to interpret that the various MCOs were accumulated over that period of time, not in single ticket exchange. In closely re-reading, I can now see that it appears the ticket you originally had [valued at US$1,700] for which you received an [AC?] ticket, and the balance refunded in these MCOs, in exchange was issued by AA. Is this correct?

As for my always defending AC, you should ask those who have been reading this and the Cdn forum before it for almost a year-and-a-half, who can certainly point to many critical posts about the airline from me. And just two weeks ago, I agreed that there appears to be both a senior management problem [i.e. no accountability to shareholders due to broadly held nature of shares] and a very technocratic rather than people-oriented approach to dealing with day-to-day operations.

That you have now admitted to having been tagged as a "difficult customer", and your non-response to the question about the status or outcome of the earlier suit against AC, has not changed my initial view of this matter: we simply do not have enough facts to determine whether AC is acting correctly or incorrectly in your case.

According to Section 3.0 of the ARC Industry Agents' Handbook (IATA has similar rules), a MCO consists of:

1) Front Cover
2) Auditor's Coupon (ripped off by agent after issuing)
3) Agent's Coupon (only applies if issued by travel agent)
4) Exchange Coupon (this is what Canadian probably has)
5) IMPORTANT!! "Passenger Coupon"

The agents in MEX made a mistake by giving Canadian only the "Exhcnage Coupon"

What the agents in MEX should have done is after issuing the MCO, tear off only the Auditor's Coupon, and Agent's Coupon and give Canadian the MCO with the "Exchange coupon" attached to the "Passenger Coupon"

AC did not honour the MCO since the "Exchange coupon" was not attached to the "Passenger Coupon"

Employee,

OK the original ticket I exchanged in MEX was AA 001 stock Endorsed to AC, residual value was given back at my request in the form of the MCO's.

I tried both to exchange MX MCO's that were open to any Iata Carrier first, YYZ did not think that they could accept these, they should look in the IATA Manuals!

Then I offered the AC MCO's on 014 Stock.
ALL had the receipt still attached and were still within the One Year Validity, especially the 5 issued in MEX last month!
The AA ticket was a full fare ticket, and issued by an agency in Lima Peru, my only other option would be to refund it through AC to AA in DFW to then send it to AA in Lima then to send it to the agency and I get my $$ in 2-3 years.

As for the other 4 MCO's:

One was issued in YYZ (Same Office) on the 25th June 2000 from an original AC 014 document issued 27 Mar 2000 again totaly valid.

Another was issued in Paris as residual value from another AC MCO that was originaly a AA ticket both the AA and AC ticket #'s are clearly on the MCO. Also this was done at the time of my ticket being issued so if this is bad so is my ticket!

One is for $350.00 issued Apr 3 2000 originaly a BA Ticket with the ticket # on it issued Mar 27 2000.

The only one missing this info is for $136.00 US, it was issued in YUL and the agent did not write the original # on it but is this my fault?

Employee e mail me [email protected] and I will provide you my PNR and ask you to call this agent at YYZ.

On a positive note I spent 30 minutes this evening with AC CTO in MEX and got them to place a verification message for the 5 MCO's they issued into my PNR. Now the question is will YYZ act upon this or find some other reason not to accept them?