FlyerTalk Forums - So, what does it mean to be "protected"? (Long-ish post)

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Agent:

Are you saying that for this cancelled AC flight (Toronto to San Diego), passengers with a front-cabin (ie business class) award ticket (D) can not only get seats from the award inventory of UA flights to San Diego (domestic first class - "R"?), but can only, if there is a protection agreement between AC and UA that allows it, get seats from revenue inventory (ie "F"?) of the front cabin? Without such a specific agreement, these passengers will not be successful in getting revenue seats in UA domestic first class cabin? Has AC entered into a specific agreement with UA, for this and all other transborder routes that AC has cancelled?

Quote:

I'm a agent w/United, and everyday since AC announced their sked reduction I have been looking in United's protection profile to see what we at United are supposed to do if approached by a AC customer. In the past, if a carrier is pulling out a of market, that carrier will approach a certain carrier, i.e UA, and ask for protection space. The profile in the computer will then tell the agent what to book if a customer has not already been rebooked by the issuing carrier. The protection agreement also insures that the ticketing accepting airline will get paid. I.E, all tickets issued by a certain date for travel by a certain date can be accepted. Now for award tickets, I have seen, and not saying it will happen again, that we are to book the lowest booking code if the customer has not already been booked/protected by their original carrier.

Quote:

Originally posted by FlyerGoldII:
Has AC entered into a specific agreement with UA, for this and all other transborder routes that AC has cancelled?

Now you are getting into confidential territory. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/wink.gif

Quote:

Originally posted by californiadreamin':
re: calling AC res for info on Aeroplan tkts..
the above is a good example of calling the wrong department.. just because we want to call res for the info, a res agent, helpful though s/he may be, is not the person to contact about FT tickets; since AC joined the rest of the world in separating out the revenue callers from FT callers, it has become infinitely easier and smoother to get the dope about such travel from the dedicated department.
As for the CIC quoted above, note the precursor refers to misconnects to another airline; there is no such misconnect in the original booking. Aeroplan's limitations on schedule changes equal my experience with DL, and I have to confess I find them quite logical given the nature of air travel.

Well, really I was calling AC reservations for information on flights that AC cancelled. It didn't seem reasonable to call Aeroplan about this initially, as they had already done their job (issued my tickets), and it wasn't them who cancelled the flights. It wasn't apparent to me at that time that Aeroplan had anything to do about resolving the problem.

You did the right thing - AC reservations will have the most up to date info regarding route cancellations. (Although AE agents can access that info too, reservations are usually more updated since they deal with it more often than AE).

Some people just like to come in and pick on people. Don't worry about them.

re my previous comment..
one may not consider my previous comment constructive, however, that is only if you wish to ignore what is correct..
schedule changes, their handling, and our rights as passengers under such circumstances vary by kind of ticket..
I have diligently learned that what is correct is to have Aeroplan take care of any such rebooking as I am indeed subject to those limitations. I know of no other industry that would not require a customer to follow a specific protocol when certain types of adjustments are required.