imverge

A Toronto family returning from a trip to Iran had to spend almost $8,000 in extra tickets and expenses because of a mix-up that prevented their infant daughter from getting a boarding pass.

“The guy told me ‘your ticket has an issue,'” said Amir Chegini, explaining the response at the British Airways ticket counter in Tehran on Oct. 27 last year.

Chegini, his wife Tannaz and nine-month-old daughter Niki were returning from Iran after a vacation when suddenly they faced an intractable problem: British Airways refused to permit their daughter on the aircraft, even though both parents had valid tickets and their daughter’s name appears on the tickets and itinerary.

“They said the Air Canada record doesn’t match the British Airways record,” said Chegini, explaining the first of several conversations at the airport.

https://globalnews.ca/news/3994459/air-canada-booking-mixup/?utm_source=GlobalEdmonton&utm_medium=Facebook

Stranger

Sounds like AC is very confident the issue is totally BA's....

ffsim

Why would anyone buy a run-of-the-mill, non-codeshare BA flight on 014 stock? Is there any advantage at all? It seems like a really good way to set yourself up for a headache... or worse.

Stranger

Alternative is probably Iran Air. So, makes sense I would say. Not many options.

ffsim

Jagboi

One advantage is the ability to through check luggage, and if there is a delay then it's better to have things on one ticket than on separate tickets.
I've bought combined AC/BA tickets before, although from BA. That preserved my BA baggage allowance from the long haul on an AC domestic flight; otherwise I'd have had to pay bag fees on AC.
Depending on the routes, there can be a cost advantage to booking as one ticket; the domestic add on is basically free.

YEG_SE4Life

When a novice flyer (someone who hadn't spent hours and days reading FT), buys a ticket from A to B, and one airline will sell them the ticket, how are they to even suspect that it could be complicated?

ffsim

KenHamer

But then AC is always confident that it is always someone else's issue.

RangerNS

Flying halfway around the world to a place (that while might be "home") that is suspicious at best, with an infant, is an inherently complicated process.

DrunkCargo

Article does state a FF with AC. That notwithstanding, I suspect someone who tosses 18k without much concern is someone who has bought the privilege to act as a "novice" flyer, and both AC and BA should be so lucky to have customers like this.

​​​​​A PR nightmare for both, and mud slinging is just immature.

IluvSQ

How else would one get a through-fare?
Millions of these tickets are sold daily.
My last Asia trip was on an AC ticket, but included ( non-codeshared) flights on CA and KE.

montrealer

My understanding is the gentleman bought an AC ticket that was a combination of AC and BA flights. AC frequently offers good P fares where you fly AC across the Atlantic and then connect to BA for the onward leg. I have flown Canada-LHR-PRG and Canada-LHR-JNB this way in the past 2 years. The cost of both tickets (with the connection in LHR) was significantly less than AC business class Canada-LHR alone, never mind the additional BA flight.

{Update to add: a PRC90 fare YYZ-Tehran-YYZ on AC, including flights on BA from LHR, is C$3644. YYZ-LHR-YYZ alone, potentially on the same AC flights, is C$5245. All before surcharges and taxes.]

I also empathize with the frustrations of a multi-airline ticket with no-one taking responsibility for a snafu. About 5 years ago I nearly got stranded in BOM when an AC-issued Canada-(AC)-LHR-(9W)-BOM return ticket got messed up, though this was a code-share. In my case, a combo of being able to phone my travel agent, and a proactive 9W check-in lead who put me on "non-rev, to be sorted out later" saved the day. I think these issues get magnified whenever one is at an outstation where local staff are more worried about losing their job due to not following the rules than customer service.

Not sure this gentleman had an alternative, but I've carefully limited my use of the "pull out my credit card and pay and sort it out later" to paying more to the *same* airline that screwed up. Getting a charge reversed/refunded, at worst treated as a write-off by the airline, is always significantly less difficult than persuading Airline A to fork over cold hard cash to a passenger to reimburse what he/she paid to Airline B.

ffsim

Thanks folks, that's the part I didn't quite grasp. I had always (clearly wrongly) assumed that interline connections were offered out of convenience and had no impact on fare. Basically, I thought it was like buying separate one-way fares on a single ticket. As far as I'm concerned, the one good thing to come out of this thread is I learnt a little something. Just a shame that it cost that family an extra $8k

Thanks for the quantitative example ^

Jagboi

Similarly, I have done in J:
YYC-YYZ (AC) YYZ-LHR; LHR-LIN (BA) for ~$2100, while YYC-LHR was ~$6K.