canadiancow

In an ideal world, OP would have thought, "What do I want?"

The options were:
1. The least possible delay, on rouge
2. A bigger delay, on mainline
3 (maybe). An even bigger delay, on a mainline wide-body

Even in that ideal world, a request for compensation is not out of the question.

Maybe one person would take the next flight on rouge, while another would wait for Signature Class. But you're either getting a delayed downgrade, or a huge delay.

I don't know what I'd do if my options were "rouge now or mainline in three hours" after being delayed already. It would probably depend on what I needed to do on arrival. But I'd probably be writing in about it unless I believed it was weather-induced.

Adam1222

The problem is we don't know what the *OP* wanted, though. There was a clickbaity title saying OP was "switched", which isn't the term id use here. And moreover, there are a lot of responses saying "typical AC" and the like, when I don't think AC did something "wrong" here. Just because OP may be entitled to some compensation in your view doesn't mean that AC did some horrible outrageous thing here. No airline can predict how every particular passenger would like to be reaccommodated in irrops.

canadiancow

And I'm saying it doesn't matter.

The options were:
1. A delay, on rouge
2. A bigger delay, on mainline

Neither option is great service.

Adam1222

And I'm saying that labelling all conceivable options when there's been a delay as bad "service" is unreasonable. I'm not sure what you think good service would be beyond turning back the clock or hiring a private plane for the OP.

Adam Smith

At this point, good service would be giving the OP some sort of compensation for the ...... experience of flying 5 hours on a rouge 763 - eCoupon or discount code.

canadiancow

"We're sorry your flight was delayed and you had to be rebooked. Here's $x or y%."

Quite frankly, I don't care what they do to people in basic economy. But AC sucks at proactive compensation. I'm an SE, and I'm sometimes paid J. If you're below CASM, the government can protect you. If you're paid J, AC should WANT to make you whole. I had to write in to get a $50 eCoupon when I had no meal on SFO-YYZ in paid J

A recent UA SFO-FRA had shortened catering. No cheese tray, no dessert, maybe a few other missing items. Compensation was given out during the flight. The high end was a $500 credit. I don't know the low end. But it was done before the flight landed.

I recently wrote AC about a last-minute paid J downgrade. The final sentence of the letter was "A quick email or phone call would have solved the vast majority of our issues (food), but even now, almost 2 months after the fact, there's been nothing."

Stuff happens. I get that. But if you're too damn incompetent to deal with it appropriately ahead of time (OP says TPE wouldn't give other options), then you better damn well compensate appropriately. Proactively. Otherwise it's definitely bad service.

DestinaLente1

Aha -- I will keep this in mind. Thanks for the tip!

DestinaLente1

DestinaLente1

My husband & I weren't in a hurry to get home and it was flight enjoyment and comfort we were after. I did say something several times at TPE and they flat out ignored me. I told them we were fine to wait a few hours in YVR. I understand some people's preference to get on the next scheduled flight -- but we are the complete opposite of that.

DestinaLente1

A bigger delay on a mainline wide-body was what we were after. We were on our way home, and not to someplace where a hotel had been booked. If the latter were the case, certainly, we would have opted for the least possible delay.
I should mention that the first delay was at TPE airport and the second one would have been at YVR so it would have been ideal as it would have given us time to stretch our legs. We had barely an hour in YVR and you all know what that's like when it's your first point of arrival in Canada!

Thank you -- I've requested for compensation so let's see what happens in the next few weeks.

DestinaLente1

Apologies -- Clickbait wasn't my intention when I used the word 'switched' in the title. I just didn't know what else to call it. What AC did 'wrong' was not listening to me at the TPE counter when I asked for a later flight and after I said we were fine with being in YVR a few hours if that's what it would take. Putting us on Rouge was egregious, but not outrageous, as you say, and they were surely working on the usual assumption that people want to get to their destinations as quickly as possible.

pitz

The title says "paid revenue seats", but as we all know, J seats have been available for years at the same price as deep-discount economy, adjusted for the seat size, etc. Typically a 3:1 ratio or so because that's how big a J seat is relative to a Y seat in terms of aircraft space footprint. And without the privileges that were traditionally attached to full-J, such as flexibility, refundability, etc. When you throw in the lounge access, baggage allowance, the meal, etc., AC often sells J seating for cheaper than the cheapest Economy seats.

Perhaps the OP should clarify if this was a deep-discount J ticket, or a full-fare J ticket?

If its a deep-discount J ticket, I see not a lot of a big deal here, bottom of the proverbial totem pole, just like an deep-discount Y ticket. If it was full-J, its definitely a different story.

DestinaLente1

I mentioned 'paid revenue seats' if only to distinguish it from J on points.

Adam Smith

No, they don't. It's not uncommon to find Y for just a few hundred bucks round trip TATL or TPAC. Other than the rare mistake fare, there aren't $1,500 round trips in J. And that's before taking in to account that things like AIFs are fixed per ticket, so even if cheap J is 3x what cheap Y is, AC is likely collecting more than 3x because true 3rd party charges account for a much bigger share of cheap Y tickets.

Totally irrelevant. AC downgraded OP to an inferior product - last I checked, AC still allows changes/refunds if a flight gets rouged, which is AC explicitly acknowledging that it's not the same as what someone originally paid for. Doesn't even matter if it was a points ticket.

YEG USER

There have been some other threads on this, one very recently. I don't really have an opinion on the right approach for this, but typically AC will not make changes to connecting flights until the original outbound flight has departed (or possibly not until it lands). AC will often only rebook you once they have a better idea of what flight you can actually take as:

• The original connecting flight can be delayed
• The flight you get protected on can be delayed/cancelled
• The original outbound flight can make up some time in the air
• The original outbound flight can be further delayed or even cancelled, etc.
• Sometimes operations will hold/delay a flight if there are enough delayed connecting passengers (happened on 2 flights I was on last week)

I wasn't able to find the recent thread in my initial search, and don't have time right now to try other searches, but IIRC the person in that thread asked in the lounge to change a connecting flight because their outbound was going to be delayed. In the end, they were able to make their original connection when at first it appeared they wouldn't be able to.

As I said earlier, I don't really have an opinion on this practice. I understand the piece of mind that can come with being protected in advance, but understand why the airline doesn't do this.

Look at this from another viewpoint if things had unfolded slightly differently... Say AC had rebooked you in TPE onto a later flight the next day hours later. You land in YVR and find that your original connecting flight was delayed due to late arrival of aircraft. You try to switch back to this flight but can't because the seats have already been reallocated to people. Now you're waiting in YVR with an unnecessary further delay. You might have been ok with this, but most pax wouldn't be. While this situation is hypothetical, it can certainly happen. Being proactive can sometimes work against you too.