Air Canada codeshare disaster
 

This is more of a warning than a question for those booking codeshare business class flights on Air Canada - beware!

My parents in law made a booking for flights from Montreal to Singapore for September for Business outbound and Premium Economy Inbound.

The website showed the fares for complete business outbounds and mixed cabins (first leg business, second leg economy) - so naturally, they selected a flight combination that showed it was completely business. Nowhere did it say it was a mixed cabin flight (there were others that were labeled mixed cabin). The cabin types showed P for the Air Canada portion and U for the Singapore Airlines portion. Naturally, the 'U' made me question if it was actually Business so I called Air Canada and they reassured me that the U was Singapore Airline's booking class for Business. A quick check on my end confirmed it. Great - tickets booked. Confirmation page showed it was a Business Saver fare. No indication of mixed cabin for the outbound. They did select a mixed cabin inbound - Economy on Singapore Airlines to Tokyo and Premium Economy from Tokyo to Montreal. This was clearly labeled. (I have pictures of all this but since I'm new, i can't post them yet until I have 5 posts :S - perhaps in some replies I could)

The confirmation email came from Air Canada and it showed full business as well in the summary. However, when we opened the PDF - lo and behold - the Singapore Airlines portion was Economy. I called Air Canada who confirmed that their website was glitchy and alot of people only found out at the gates or at check in that they were not in fact Business class even though they paid for it. My parents in law, not being tech savvy, would definitely have been one of those people. The agent told me to send an email to Air Canada asking me to request them to fix it. I thought it was ridiculous! That was something they should definitely flag as a priority.

I eventually asked him, how would I know which flights are mixed and which are pure business - his response was to look at the seat map when selecting my seats to confirm it - where I responded it was impossible to see that for partner flights!

He then said, the flight that transits in Rome is pure business, to which I replied, that's the same cabin code (so clearly he didn't even check, he just didn't care - great Air Canada!).

After that, I got a sigh and he said, look - what this means is that the second airline doesn't have Business class cabins. I laughed and said, this is Singapore Airlines, of course they do! His response - the business class product of that airline is not up to Air Canada's standards and so Air Canada won't put up passengers in business on that airline.

At that point, I know this person was just making up excuses to put the phone down. When I tried to explain how Singapore Airlines has a great business product - his response was that he worked in Air Canada and I didn't.

I called again, got a nicer agent who had no idea what to do. She put me on hold and spoke to the ticketing department who told her the only solution she had was for me to either book economy with Air Canada (so i get what I'm paying for or not book business with Air canada when codeshare flights are involved).

So there you have it, we booked on Lufthansa with a Singapore Airlines codeshare - cheaper and fully business. Air Canada lost business in this case but I fear alot of people who are not tech savvy are going to get nasty surprises when their flights come. (Since many people actually wait for check in to selected seats on partner airlines and won't see that their seat is in economy until then). It's not an error on consumer parts either since mixed cabin fares show mixed cabin labels on their website. One would assume when at checkout, it says Business for both sectors, that it actually is business and not only find out when the PDF email arrives.

I would thus like to warn everyone - unless booking full business on Air Canada flights for all legs, do NOT book business or premium economy on Air Canada if it involves a codeshare. Let me save you the painful 8 hours on the phone we spent to get nowhere.

With VHHH and RCTP unusable for transit, it is getting difficult to get to WSSS. All the SQ legs WSSS-RKSI or RJBB are showing J0 Y0 for dates I am looking at. OMDB or OTBD are the other options.

I admit I have no idea what those codes mean.

Ok a quick google search tells me those are Asian Airport codes. The big issue here is Air Canada advertising a flight as fully business and only letting you in on the surprise after you book it. Calling the call centers don't help either since they say they're just as confused on their end.

ICAO codes aren't really that helpful to most of the general public.

Sadly, this is an old, old glitch. I've booked YYZ-SIN in J and the SQ portion books into Y unless you have a travel agent who knows what they are doing, it is one of those old things.

Do you have a recommendation for said travel agent? And was the price the same as the website? Cause the air Canada call center agent had no idea how to do it.

It is possible to have all J on a codeshare. I did it on the website (no agent), SIN-HGK-YYZ. Thanks to FT knew to check and recheck everything constantly. I concur SIN business class is great — Book the Cook, level of service and professionalism, comfort of seats, etc.

I thought VHHH was only allowing transit to Mainland China; all other travel had to be O&D only.

It was the new airport in Hong Kong (connecting point). Previously I’d only been in the old airport..

I flew from SIN to HKG on SQ (J) and connected to AC (J) after a few hours in the SIN lounge. It was the flight where I passed MM.

This is exactly happening to us. We booked premium economy all
the way but our second leg was suddenly changed to economy. AC didn’t help me at all.

My visit was shortly before Covid — perhaps that makes a difference?

Honestly if your booking is less than 24hours old, cancel it - it's free to cancel within 24hrs. If it's been longer than that, call AC and make them cancel it FOC. (Btw AC told me they'd cancel it FOC and they still charged me a $300 cancellation fee for ONE of the passengers. I had to call them and alert them to this. I'm afraid AC is really in shambles atm)

What I would do is either - as suggested by other forum users, get an experienced TA to book it for you or do what I did - look for the same booking on a partner airline. In my case, I got the codeshare flight numbers LH was using and booked the same flights via LH - had to call them as these don't show up on their website - I used google flights to find the numbers.

I complained to AC using their generic customer feedback form on their website and surprisingly they replied in a day with an apology and a 20% discount on a future booking - which I will only use if travelling domestically within Canada or the US.

Thx. It’s already over 24 hours after we booked. My son has special needs so we like to have more seating room for him😓

What do you mean suddenly changed? Mixed cabins are clearly noted in the booking flow. Are you saying it changed after you booked the flight?

I'm actually waiting to write in about an issue there.

My booking flow (and email confirmation) said I'd be in business on a partner, and I ended up being seated in economy.

So it does happen where the website (and email) say you'll be in a higher cabin. Mind you in my case, it continued to say it, so I was surprised at check-in.