canadiancow

I have a UA ticket with the first segment marketed by NH and operated by AC.

AC cannot see the segment.

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AC: Yeah the ticket looks fine, but the PNR doesn't have it. You need to call UA to get them to re-sync it.

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UA: Hmmm that's weird. The segment shows under their control... Let me reissue it.

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AC: No I still don't see it. Let me put you on hold while I talk to ticketing.
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Yeah it's messed up. United needs to fix this.
Me: What should I say to them? Do you have any technical phrases I can use to help?
AC: Tell them to look at the file and figure out what's going on because it's backwards

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UA: What's going on?
Me: AC told me to tell you to look at the file and figure out what's going on because it's backwards, and they can't see the first segment
UA: Let me put you on hold.
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UA: I see it under their control. I did not see it under their control when you first called.
Me: Okay thanks

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AC: I do not see the segment on the PNR, but I do see it on the ticket.
Me: They said you have control of that segment.
AC: We do not have control of anything. This is a United ticket. They need to deal with it. You booked it through them. They have not confirmed the space with us. They should have sent us a shadow PNR.
Me: Even if it's a codeshare? I understand it's their ticket, but this is literally my third call to Air Canada tonight about this. I've been going back and forth with you and United, and no one seems able to fix it.
AC: Let me put you on hold and call United.
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AC: Blah blah stupid stupid let me transfer you to United
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UA: Hi it's an issue with your last segment.
Me: No, my first segment.
UA: Ohhhhh she said it was your last segment
Me:
UA: What's wrong?
Me: They can't see it.
UA: It's an NH flight.
Me: Your website says "Operated by Air Canada"
UA: No it's "NH". That's ANA's code. That means it's operated by them.
Me: It's a codeshare. It's operated by Air Canada.
UA: No that's not how it works.
Me: Look at the last segment on the booking. UA marketed, AC operated.
UA: Yes, that's because we market flights operated by Air Canada.
Me: Just like NH is marketing AC's flight for the first segment...
UA: No, if you go to united.com and look it up --
Me: It will say "Operated by Air Canada"
UA: Hold on let me look
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UA: One second let me check with my supervisor
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UA: Okay my supervisor clarified it. It means that even though it's an NH flight number, Air Canada will be the one flying you.
Me: Yes. I know. But they can't see the segment, and they said I'm going to have problems checking in, even though the ticket is valid.
UA: Oh okay do you mind if I put you on hold again?
Me: Not at all
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(in the background) IT'S NOT WORKING
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UA: Okay thank you for holding. My lead has advised that we reissue your whole booking, which will result in a new confirmation number, which will happen sometime in the next 24 hours.

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Thank god I've got an ample supply of spiced rum (but better than AC's variety) and a fridge full of Coke Zero.

For the record, at the time of writing, the issue was still not solved.

canadiancow

I feel like I'm going to get merged into the "what can the concierge do" thread, but I decided to do a quick check with them because they're generally looking in different systems than reservations.

AC: Thank you for calling Air Canada Concierge, how can I help you?
Me: I know this isn't for travel today, but I've just spent over 2 hours getting passed back and forth between Air Canada reservations and United, so I was just wondering if you can you confirm if I'm booked on a flight on November 22nd?
AC: One second. Yeah I see you're booked on Vancouver Narita.
Me: ............. I literally can't believe how easy that was. Reservations said I wasn't.
AC: Well let me just confirm... Yeah I see your reservation, and it has a valid ticket. It's all good.
Me: Can you do a seat selection?
AC: Sure! We have... well... everything except 2K, and a couple in 7.
Me: 1A?
AC: Done
Me: You just made my night. Thank you very much.
AC: Have a great day Mr. Kennedy.

I'd also like to point out that at no point did I give my name, Aeroplan number, or any identifying information. This was based on my phone number. I'm not suggesting that's crazy-awesome technology, but the speed at which this call was handled...

She even told me to call them with any travel concerns in the future. I don't think she realizes there are two prompts on the line. One for language, and the other for "are you traveling today?"

Either way, holy crap.

Holy. Crap.

That took waaaaay too long.

Now I just hope United's reissuing doesn't screw things up.

philelite

This is why I don't like codeshares!

jasdou

I had to book some flights yesterday. AC wanted to sell me a UA-operated flight under an AC flight number as part of my itinerary. I decided to take out the UA segment from the AC-issued itinerary and I booked the UA leg directly on 016 stock.

I saved $100 doing that and potentially a lot of trouble although I do realize this is not always possible.

Plumber

From Air Canada's Star Alliance page.... i dont think Mr. Kennedy was seeing the benefits of the grandiose vision yesterday!

"The vast Star Alliance™ network makes everything faster and easier."

and

"When the Star Alliance™ network was created, our aim was to build an airline alliance which would improve the travel experience of customers for whom flying is a way of life."

Plus

"Codeshare Partnerships
Code sharing refers to a practice through which a flight operated by one airline is jointly marketed as a flight by one or more other airlines. Through our codeshare partnerships, we place our designator code (AC) on flights operated by our codeshare partners, which allows us to provide you with worldwide services through an extensive network of convenient flight connections."

Plumber

The way it should be!!!^

yyznomad

I usually tl;dr, but what a nice train wreck of a read.

RatherBeInYOW

I had this the other way around earlier this year. I was going YOW - YVR - SFO on AC and then UA on a 014 ticket and Air Canada made a mess of it somehow, nobody in the YOW airport (AC check-in, AC ticketing, AC lounge agent) could figure out how to issue me a boarding pass for the codeshare flight from YVR to SFO. I had to get our corporate travel to make AC re-issue the entire ticket while I was mid-air between YOW and YVR.

Why is the Concierge the only person who can handle these kind of things? Almost makes an MR to get from 75K to 100K this year seem palatable

yyznomad

Yeppers.

They often come through when it really matters.

Plumber

Indeed. This is very true!

jaysona

Code shares aren't always a problem, but when you have a code share marketed by one company (NH) ticketed on another company (UA) operated by metal of a 3rd company (AC) then you're just asking for trouble.

The airlines have to issue shadow PNRs that don't get linked properly, have sync issues between systems, etc, etc, etc.

Given the knowledge that CC apparently has about how things work behind the scenes I'm surprised he even tried to book suck a flight.

I'd never make such a booking, given the multitude of potential issues on all the various back-end systems, no amount of savings is worth the potential aggravation.

I suspect maybe CC may be of the same opinion after this ordeal.

jaysona

I doubt the concierge actually did anything. CC called in a couple of hours later after the ordeal started, in all likelihood everything had synced up by the time he made his call to the concierge.

philelite

In this case the amount of saving CC got made this little ordeal worth it! You'll have to ask him how much he paid for the ticket

canadiancow

It was originally NH metal, but they downgauged the 789 to 788, meaning I lost all-aisle access, and it's not even a lie flat seat.

So they rebooked me on "another NH flight", which just happened to be operated by AC.

I wanted to fly NH, but this puts me 7k closer to MM

No, res still can't see it (I called before replying to you ). And it's been many many hours.

jaysona

That's odd since they both use the same RESIII system, if one can see your PNR, so should the other, no? Just one more of the many AC IT quirks I guess.......