Just called AC and had no wait, glad to see things are finally improving.
As for the reason I called, I noticed that my previously rouged flight (YYC-YYZ) had been switched back to mainline so I wanted it back. Agent was friendly and did it in a couple of minutes.

Okay here is my summary of making changes go Aeroplan bookings. Simple changes, pre-departure.

1. Tell them what you want.
2. They confirm it, and add the new segments to the PNR.
3. They put you on hold to talk to "ticketing" or "supervisor" (I've heard both)
4. They come back to tell you the refund and additional collection, and ask you to approve it.
5. They put you on hold again, removing the old segments.
6. They come back and get you to enter your credit card number.
7. Done.

This is taking quite a bit longer than under the old system, and step 4 really annoys me when I'm getting a refund of $38 and the additional collection is $33. Yes, I approve saving $5. Or when I'm shaving 7 hours and 1 connection from the trip, and I have to pay net $10. Yes, I approve.

On the bright side, there's no such thing as an unticketed reservation any more... they won't let me off the phone until that's done.

36 minutes with the agent for a simple change to 2 PNRs. One of which had an "issue" of some sort.

Apparently BGI and WPG will be first two airports transitioning to Amadeus DCS. Interesting choices: 2-per day for BGI.. and WPG is a less rushed airport.
Just passing on a rumour.

Observation: I had a flight change from 319 to 321 with no time change. The status remained HK.

I forgot to post here the other day, but I really hope they fix standby at some point. I did YYC-YYZ-YUL a few days ago and would have really liked to standby for an earlier YYZ-YUL, 35-minute connection, so doable if the inbound is on time, but wouldn't take much to blow it up.

In the old days, no problem. Standby, and if you clear but don't make it, no problem. But now, if you clear, you lose your seat on the original flight. Hopefully you can get it back, but maybe not.

In this case, I didn't want to deal with either the hassle or the risk.

For anyone at AC reading this, historically standby and SDC have been advantages for AC vs WS, because WS is a mess when it comes to those things, and that has been an incentive to book an AC. If standby stays as it is, it lessens the value proposition of flying AC.

What bugs me is that I have to pay $23 and get a refund of $47 instead of just getting a net refund of $24.

Good that they seem to have sorted that out then :tu:

Yesterday an Aeroplan agent told me it was impossible to break the rules. I couldn't add a third stop (dest + 2 stopovers), or create an open jaw given we already had a stop and destination. I was asking for concessions due to Poland closing all tourist stuff.

Today, I called to change my two bookings to return home immediately.

One of the bookings is now:
YYZ-CDG // flown
stop
CDG-WAW // flown
stop
WAW-MUC-SFO

Notice anything?

I told him "same thing here"; I meant "same flights as already there, just three days early". I think he thought I meant "same flights as the other booking".

So they clearly can break rules in the new system.

I'm calling right back to get this changed, but it's interesting to note it can be done.

LO was unable to print an AC boarding pass, but had no issues with LH boarding passes for our connections in MUC.

Another thing that will likely get better after DCS migrates.

Can confirm that DCS migrate has occured at YYJ. Boarding passes are different too. I will post a photo soon.

https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...7c51741373.png

Full support for SDC/standby:
https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...0b432212ae.png

So basically covid was a conspiracy to make sure the DCS migration went smoothly with so few people travelling :D

Standby works by creating an HL segment on the PNR. It locks you out of SDC and "cancel check-in" though :(

BDA YWG LHR are allegedly also upgraded.

I wonder whether the DCS migration will fix the problem of dropping the M at the end of certain names...

Interesting how standby and refunds work. My PNR is still active.

https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...589b681358.png

Wait, what? Is the cowtool back online? I tried using it yesterday but I got an error message.

I have not been able to fix it for general usage, but I have been able to fix it for myself.

It seems like they're automatically HK'ing some bookings.

Yesterday:
https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...3701162b26.png

Just now, after receiving an app notification and a new ticket email:
https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...ade88ae635.png

Yes, Ada M, it will. :D

Yes...one of the joys of Amadeus is that there's real-time access to other Amadeus user's information. I'm enjoying using it.

Is this slow down a chance for AC to fix all the bugs with the Amadeus? I heard that after the Nov. debacle that improvements were coming but has the functionality improved?

"Behind the scenes, our team is using this time to improve your travel experience, whether by deploying new features to aircanada.com and our mobile app, or by accelerating the launch of our new passenger service system in our airports."

Aside from the DCS migration, there isn't much extra opportunity for improvements. It's easier to migrate YYZ when it has 1 flight a day than when it has 300, but the people working on all the tech already had pretty full agendas.

All of my bookings were HKed before I cancelled them!

Some airlines (AA and AS who use Sabre and not Amadeus) actually stopped using titles such as "MR, MRS, MISS, MS, M etc." during the booking process when tickets are purchased via their own sales channels. The names field used on tickets and boarding passes only use LAST/FIRST (eg. SMITH/ADAM) where the middle name and gender of the passenger is entered in the APIS (SSR DOCS) field instead.

I think the "M" thing is a French-Canadian quirk and is there for political correctness reasons. As such, AC's old DCS interprets anything with an "M" at the end of a name as "monsieur". It is my assumption that Amadeus DCS does not have that kind of logic built in.

I wish AC would do this! I am so tired of pre-Amadeus bookings showing as MISS ____ it is so annoying! Almost as annoying as when you book and it combines your middle and first names into one name.

The M thing is definitely because of French, although AF or other French-speaking airlines may also have experienced it.

What surprised me is that someone at AC Reservations had told me it was because AC made a change to RESIII a couple years back. Up until 2017 or something, this wasn't an issue.

AFAIK, French-speaking airlines in other parts of the world typically stick to the internationally recognized "MR, MRS, MS".

The "M" and "MME" thing for AC probably only came about because of enforcement of Quebec language laws which are stricter than those other French speaking jurisdictions around the world.

Yes, you are correct. But it is predominately french-speaking airlines that do this!

Interesting. I don't remember what options AF offered me when I booked with them a couple of months ago.

I've also found this to be inconsistent, usually it happens, but sometimes it doesn't.

AF? I thought this was the AC forum?

I haven't been experiencing any issues with Amadues as of late! Thankfully!

My good friend is flying back from uni today through YYZ and he said that the agents at the airside customer service desk kept mentioning a "new system". It sounds like YYZ could have been moved to the new DCS.

Glad to hear this. I hope with the lack of traffic in all the airports that they expedite the implementation of the new system. Work all the kinks out now!

canadiancow confirms it has.

canadiancow has also confirmed that BOS, CDG, DCA, HKG, IAD, LHR, MEX, ORD, YFC, YHZ, YLW, YOW, YQB, YQR, YQT, YSB, YTS, YUL, YVR, YWG, YXE, YYG, YYJ, YYT, YYZ have for sure been transitioned.

Does any one know if this impacts the the e-up process changes induced by the initial Amadeus 'transition'? Are we back to the previous SOP yet?

Join us at the virtual Do tonight and maybe the cow will have an answer ;)

As far as I know, yes, it's back to normal.

The issue was that new res to old DCS was a one-way data transfer process. That's why seat selection wasn't possible close to departure, etc.

When both sides are new, it's a bidirectional system, so changes at the airport propagate back to reservations. I know for a fact you can select a seat when booking a flight 3 hours before departure, without having to go through the check-in system. I know for a fact you can SDC with self-serve tools. I see no reason to believe eUpgrades don't work at these airports, but I haven't flown a Y fare in weeks. Or maybe I just haven't flown anything in weeks. Both are true statements.

The question has mostly been answered, but I may just join anyway.

The cow always has an answer!

The DCS migration is almost done now anyways! Most airport systems are already converted to Amadeus!

AC serves over 200 destinations...not quite there yet.

I do have it on fairly good authority that they intend to have it completed well before the end of the month.