cowtool

I think it may be time to add a checkbox "automatically send booking reference and last name to cowtool in the event of an error".

Clearly the whole tool isn't down since it's working for some people (and me), and short of having the failing ones, there isn't much to do. And it's always the same. Someone posts here that it's not working. I ask them to PM me. They do. Then I (try to) fix whatever's not working there.

I believe there are different error messages when it's definitely a bug in the tool, compared to "An error occurred. Check your input and try again.", which usually indicates an error loading the data. But when I have some time (probably not today), I'll verify that and add the option to automatically send me an email in cases where it's possibly a bug in the tool.

For the past 5 minutes (and next few), I am trying a few things that might result in intermittent failures though.

Edit: Not that it was failing for me at all before, but I'm done this minimal maintenance. The logs do indicate a couple errors had occurred recently, so hopefully giving it a kick will improve things?

flyingcrooked

I haven't followed this thread closely so apologies if this is a known issue, but I just noticed the cowtool viewer is showing 1098 SQD for a TATL return trip I have coming up that cost about $1900 including tax. That can't be right, I thought. Digging into my email history I see that when I booked the flight back in May, total air transportation charges on the receipt/itinerary from AC were $1586.40. A few weeks after booking there was a schedule change, and when rebooking at no cost I picked a different routing for the inbound, direct UK to Canada rather than through FRA. The receipt/itinerary issued after that change makes absolutely no sense (see screenshot). The total booking cost including tax is represented as $1093.40, with no breakdown of where this comes from. And it shows me still being charged German taxes and airport fees even though the itinerary doesn't involve Germany (or at least this info is presented as if these taxes/fees contribute to the overall price).

1093 EURO is almost exactly $1586 CAD, so that must be the source of the problem. My original itinerary was:

EDI-YYZ-YOW
YOW-YUL-FRA-EDI

when I changed the flight to

EDI-YYZ-YOW
YOW-YYZ-EDI

the mere presence of that transfer in Germany in the original itinerary caused AC to mess things up, presenting in my receipt the Euro number with a $. I'm glad I don't need to rely on that receipt to get reimbursed (I pay for the flights myself). Will watch to see what happened with the SQD posting.

JacFlyer

Re-accommodation in the case of SKCH doesn’t have ADCOL, hence not change existing price structure. Even tho your new itin doesn’t involve German anymore, it will still show you German tax in price breakdown since the pricing information is never changed.

The change of dollar amount from CAD to EUR is, however, likely an AC IT bug.

flyingcrooked

Is the idea that the BZSt or FRA etc still receive those taxes, even though I never set foot in Germany? If not, it seems weird to me that I have a receipt showing that I paid tax to German entities, given that I did not.

Adam Smith

You never paid anything to a German entity. You paid AC, and it's up to them to deal with any required remittances.

JacFlyer

I have no idea, this would require someone who works for airlines or know the industry to answer.
My assumption is that airlines will pay taxes & fees according to the revised itinerary (can either be more or less expensive). It’s just that they are not changing what they have collected from you, so they will not recalculate whatever the price breakdown they have shown you.

flyingcrooked

In general when there is a tax on a good or service, and one pays the provider, one is considered to have paid that tax and to have paid the entity that receives those taxes, merely via the provider, who never owns that money but merely has temporary custodial authority over it. In any event, this issue seems irrelevant, as substantially the same question could be asked by saying why do I have a receipt that says I paid money to AC for taxes that the German govt isn’t going to charge AC and that AC isn’t going to pay. Whether this counts as me paying the german entity is neither here nor there.

wjw

Obviously the taxes are never going to be perfect with either schedule changes or IRROPS.

Like if I were booked on a flight that never touched German soil and then was rescheduled to go through FRA, do you really think AC would send me a bill for the German security charge? Of course not. Same reason you won’t have this refunded if your scheduled FRA stop gets rescheduled or rerouted so you don’t land in Germany.

flyingcrooked

The concern had nothing to do with getting a refund. It was only about whether the receipt was accurate. I don’t expect to get a refund when a schedule change lets me pick new flights. I do expect if I’m later sent a receipt it shouldn’t say some portion of that money is going to X if no portion of that money is.

That issue is getting a little off topic, however I do wonder whether, if AC cared more about accuracy concerning that, they would also have thought or bothered to design things so that their system didn’t present Euro prices marked as Canadian prices, which is what’s relevant to this thread. Why not just be accurate rather than inaccurate, whatever one is doing?

cowtool

I'm trying to add a warning for improperly ticketed EK segments, after a few reports of issues on FT.

If anyone here has an Aeroplan booking with EK segments, would you mind loading it on https://acpnrbeta.cowtool.com/ (specifically that beta URL) and letting me know:
1. the RBD for the EK segment(s)
2. the fare basis for those segments
3. whether you get a "bad booking" warning about the EK segments

Thanks

TechnoTourist

1. Z
2. ZBP00AFF/AE4
3. No warning

YSJ8ed

1. S
2. SBP00ATG/AE4
3. no warning

Polytonic

Possibly a dumb question, but if there are two FF# shown for a traveler, which one takes precedence for earning? (i.e. I assume one must be FQTV and the other FQTS, but which one is which?)

cowtool

I've moved the EK detection into the main tool. Hopefully it catches some real issues.

If I had to guess, it's that you have a different number attached to different segments. That's the only case I've ever seen.

I think the data is there for that, but it gets complicated to display it since it's associated to both a passenger and a segment.

Polytonic

Interesting. Let me double check the booking. I'm also happy to send the PNR to you if that helps at all.