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Corp's Travel agency ticketed my trip to HK in Z class for $5000. Called AC to enter my UA's MP# and requested reassign to a window seat instead of middle section seat. After 40 minutes of wait time on the phone, the agent told me that I should have my Travel agent to do this for me.....it is THEIR job to do that! He further told me that he can make this change for me, but he will have to charge me $25 for this service. I was shock and reminded him that we are paying $5000 on this ticket already. His reply was we paid the travel agency and they haven't pay AC and AC NEEDS to make money.

I thank him for his time and also told him that I will do everything in my power so AC does not make any more money from our travel group.

Q: Do AC phone agents getting commission for this type of service? They must be......looking out for their indvidual short gain rather than providing good customer service.

mileageking

I cant believe they asked you for $25 change fee on a business class ticket!!!! Thats ridiculous! You shoud have told him what his response would be if you chose to change your mind and return the ticket and would have flown with another star alliance partner that would not have charged. Personally I think the agent made a terrible error/mistake in informing you this. You should have asked to speak to a supervisor.

Cheers.

tcook052

What baloney from a staffer. AC's getting it's money for the seat regardless of how the TA booked it i.e. direct or via a consolidator.

klparrot

It does sound somewhat unreasonable. However, frequent flyer numbers and seat assignments would normally be handled by your original travel agent. If you had booked directly with AC and they wanted the $25, I would be quite surprised. All that said, I don't condone them asking for the $25 in your case.

makin'miles

That's entirely ridiculous. Again, someone isn't thinking about the big picture.

Ken hAAmer

Neither can I.

The agent should have realized how gullible you were to purcahse a paid business class ticket on AC, and asked for $50 instead.

why fly

Classic? Also AC paid the agent 40 min to tell you they want $25. Either way they lose.

acysb87

Not a great response from AC staff,however,what about the TA asking client seat preference vs.just assigning any seat(I take it the question was not asked of OP).

A TA I am familiar with booked LAT fares YSB/YYZ r/t for someone and did not assign seats.Flight oversold,no seat assignments,wait for next available seat and flight.

yul7075

they do it all the time when people book through a travel agency,
once i was booked on a full fare latitude the booking was made originally with a travel agent but i decided to make a change in the booking when the travel ag. office was closed the only option was to call AC reservation they told me that their will be a 25$ service fee, that's nice i told here SE booked on a full fare an you stiil want 25$ i told here that i will not pay the 25$ after a few minutes she went to a a supervisor she came back that for this time i will wave you the 25$ fee, thank you air canada for not charging me on top of the 3,000$ an additional 25$ for just talking to an agent

Tangoer

Finally, here's an issue which absolutely must be esculated up to the highest levels of AC management. Sadly, judging by most of the complaints on this board, I think you'll find M. Brewer's inbox completely clogged by complaints from VBITs who though the food quality was poor, & by another raft of VBITs complaining why no food is included these days.

LRESFG

I always have a problem talking to AC about a reservation made through a TA, although I have never been asked for a fee. I get the impression that a TA reservation cannot be modified by AC without taking over the reservation itself from the TA. This may be an IT issue, but I avoid using TAs for this reason. In my experience, requesting upgrades can also be problematic on TA made reservations.

Shareholder

AC is correct. You pay a TA $50 or more to handle your travel arrangements and you should be contracting them to do these things, not AC. Why else would you pay a TA if not to handle these matters? Also, AC has no way of confirming you are who you say you are, so they would consider any changes not authorized by the booking party, the TA, as tampering with the reservation. You have made the TA your authorized agent and you must continue your dealings through them. This is not something new, it has been in effect for several years now. (I await tcook's retort.)

Altaflyer

There are many ways to verify identity. AC's policy of not doing these sorts of things for THEIR CUSTOMERS is just plain STUPID. These are THEIR customers and it is AC that gets the revenue from the ticket, not the TA. Good grief.

SESTAR

Booooo for AC.

I called them a month a go to change my seat. I was told they will charge me $25 for the request as well.

I booked my J ticket on travelocitycity.com. So, I called and made my request to them instead. Few hours later, my seat was changed to what I wanted and I paid ZERO fee.

I however did not pay $5000 for my J ticket. I paid less than $1,300 for OW from KUL-SIN-HKG-YVR-SAN.

tcook052

I am shocked you are condoning AC treating biz class pax this way, SH. It would be somewhat more understandable if it were one of the unwashed masses in cattle class but regardless of where OP's tickets were purchased AC honing its biz class passenger alienation skills comes at a price, which is taking their business elsewhere as OP has already said they will be doing. Cause and effect, simple really.

FYI I deal with by and large helpful AC staffers who are ready and willing to help me assign seats for clients booked through cruise lines so don't tell me seats can't be assigned because I know it not to be true.