yyzgigi

if you booked the flights to YYC on the 7th to the 14th they shouldn’t be cancelled as they don’t directly conflict. I’ve had other nested trips and never had a problem.

flyingcrooked

I can't imagine that would work. In any event, the idea wasn't to try to bend the rules but to determine what exactly the rules forbid or what would trigger a cancellation, i.e. how tight nesting can be.

thanks. I guess I was wondering if they considered plausibility of the nested trips or just flyability. Probably the latter because it's easier to implement and although it seems crazy fly to YUL-YYC, then fly back the next day on a different airline, then fly the next day to PUJ, then fly PUJ to YYC via a different airline 5 days later, then the next day fly YYC-YUL, then fly down to PUJ the next day on a different airline, then finally fly back to YUL the next day, you can imagine someone having a good reason for doing it.

vancouver25k

Not knowing anything about how things are implemented, I would guess that the system isn't that intelligent. It's not a human looking who might piece that together. It will probably only compare individual segments for overlaps in time (of the flight plus a buffer on either end). If more advanced, it could check if you have the same segment, say, YUL-YYC booked on consecutive days or something. But I doubt it will check if you have YUL-YYC on one day and YUL-PUJ on the next. But again, this is 100% speculation.

yyzgigi

As I was waiting for plans to settle I've had some competing trips that would not be practically flyable but did not overlap and had no issues. As long as it isn't impossible I don't think they'd have a defensible position for cancelling, so agree with your assumption on how they've likely implemented.

billdokes

As we won't know who the Jays will play in the wild card until about 7 pm tonight, last week I booked an AP ticket for Bill Jr. to both MSP + TPA for Tuesday, they definitely overlap/conflict but seems to be no issue, as it's been several days and both bookings are still standing.

As an SE, I have free cancellation up until almost flight time, so I would be disappointed if they arbitrarily canceled one or both of the bookings...same as a revenue ticket booked in Latitude, PY Flex or J Flex.

Adam Smith

​​​​​​Bookings don't get cancelled instantly. Based on my extensive research, there is some sort of time period to remedy the duplicate bookings, which appears to be correlated to the length of time until the flights. For instance, a flight 6 months out might give you a week or two to resolve the duplicates. A flight a week out might give you a couple of days. A flight 3 days out might give you a day. (I don't know the exact thresholds, just trying to illustrate the concept).

I understand from talking to res agents/concierges that when Amadeus detects a duplicate booking, it adds a note to the PNR. Something like "Duplicate booking with [PNR ABC123]. Remedy by 3PM Montreal time October 2, 2023 or system will automatically cancel". If you want to increase your confidence level, you could phone in and ask them to check the file for any notes like that.

The note will be added to all bookings deemed to be duplicates, although it will not say which booking will be cancelled. The dupe detector also doesn't always pick these things up right away - 12 hours after booking, there might be no note, and two days later, it might be cancelled. So I don't know whether the dupe detector only runs every 24 hours or something like that.

But, as always, it's worth noting this function is inconsistent. It might flag YYC-YUL-YYC round trips on back-to-back days (perfectly feasible to fly and not in violation of any tariff rule) and then not even notice blatantly conflicting YYC-YUL, YYC-YOW, and YYC-YVR flights on a different date.

The dupe detector is indifferent to method of booking - cash, points, flight pass credit, it doesn't matter.

billdokes

I still don't understand how/why they can do this based on the cancellation/refund rules as set by AC? There are lots of reasons why people might need to protect themselves on 2 different routes on the same day...put my sports example aside, what about the Consultant who knows they are going to have to be in either Boston OR NYC on a given day but won't know until closer to the date which it will be? I can think of a number of other examples where someone is doing this legitimately, and isn't that the point of high cost, highly flexible fares...you have the option to cancel/re-book up to the last minute?

canadiancow

Then rebook at the last minute when your plans firm up?

They don't want you holding space that would be impossible for you to use.

Adam Smith

I'm not advocating for how the dupe detector works, I'm just trying to explain it so that the community has the information. I don't think it's appropriate for AC to cancel bookings that don't violate the tariff (which would only be booking the same O/D pairing on the same date), even though I think @canadiancow is correct about why they would want it to work the way it does.

billdokes

Thanks Adam, totally appreciate the further insight into how the Dupe Detection works...still not sure I completely agree that it's reasonable for AC to arbitrarily cancel bookings on the common O/D example because in addition to multi-destinations, there can be cases where you're not sure what time you are able to fly on a given day...so if they offer fares or rules for certain flyers that allow cancellation up to x-mins before flight shouldn't you be able to leverage those?

Yes, I get Cow's point, but at that later date space my no longer be available or the cost may have gone up significantly. I assume AC has built some sort of premium into those flexible fares based on an assumed cancellation rate, so I'm already bearing the cost of the 'insurance' (ability to cancel for a refund) I'm buying by booking the higher fare.

Would they rather I book one ticket on AC and one on UA and in the end maybe they get the revenue and maybe they don't?

flyingcrooked

yes, this is a puzzling issue. The following strike me as cases that are totally fine, and likely common, uses of fully flexible fares, which AC would be wrong to cancel even if they had full knowledge of the situation:

- I buy a return ticket to country x for both September and October, as I'm not sure how long my single entry visa will take to arrive (we can build in that the country only lets you visit once per year).

- I buy a flight to visit my mom, once in September and once in October, although I know I will only use one of the flights, I have no intention of using both.

In the first case it's impossible to use both tickets, in the second case I could but firmly intend not to. AC wouldn't cancel them automatically of course because they don't know of the impossibility in case 1 or of the intentions in case 2. But if they did know, should they cancel them? It's hard for me to see they should.

That said, maybe I feel those cases are legit because AC would still have plenty of time to sell the seats after I cancel, assuming I do so once my plans firm up. It's easy to generate cases (perhaps you agree) where it seems they definitely should cancel the flights: e.g. suppose I want to fly to Toronto from Ottawa on November 1, I'm just not sure what time. So I book a fully flexible J ticket on every flight that flies that day, 12 or however many it is. My plan is to just decide on the day, cancelling two hours before each flight if I'm not yet ready to fly.

If that case isn't clear enough, just imagine it's not just me, but my entire extended family making the trip, and I book out all of J on fully flexible tickets on every YOW-YYZ flight the day. Seems a no-brainer they should cancel them, doesn't it?

billdokes

Does it seem like such a 'no-brainer'? They are charging a HUGE premium for those tickets vs. the most restrictive non-refundable tickets on the same flight. Part of the 'value' of the extra cost is the ability to cancel up to x hrs before the flight...so while an extreme example, you are technically following the rules set forth and communicated to you when you bought the ticket, so isn't this them arbitrarily changing their own rules once the game has begun?

flyingcrooked

yes, that sounds right. I suppose my thought is that it’s a no brainer that the tariff/contract should prevent that, whereas the other cases seem like they ought to be permissible.

foothills county flier

You are forgetting that other pax may also want that flight, but can’t because there is no seat available.. AC has a very good product what you are asking for, called flight passes(in most cases). I’m guessing AC would lose a lot more money if this policy was not in place.

nm761

But bookings made with fully flexible Latitude or J flight passes also get cancelled by the system that's looking for, what AC thinks constitutes anomalies. Booking departures from two different cities to the same destination on the same day or close by (still plausible to fly both with little time spent at the destination) were cancelled on me. Same happened for two identical itineraries booked too close (in system's view) to one another. Yes, it's true that you can change these types of flight pass bookings, in most cases, with no penalty, but you risk losing the upgrade-positive/confirmed or availability of low J class (required for a flight pass) space, when your plans get finalized.

So, flight passes protect/fix the cost of each leg, but they're not meant to provide the true flexibility in my view. That's to say, flight passes in this case are not any different from a ticket booked without a flight pass in the same fare class. Same rules apply.