Aelx2k

Those are the words I was told at check in Rome Fiumicino.

On the 3rd of July I booked a one way FCO-CDG-YUL flight on the Flying Blue website for 25,000 miles. I provided my credit card information and all and eventually I reached the last screen that reported my PNR along with the fact that all segments were in“confirmed” status.

On the same day I called Flying Blue to request an aisle seat on the intercontinental flight and I was assigned seat 45 J (bad seat I know). I also asked the agent if I could check in online and he said that unfortunately FCO is not supported yet. The phone call assured me that everything was ok.

On the 5th I went to FCO and got there about 40min before the flight departure time. They let me skip the line or else I would have not been able to check-in in time. At check in the lady couldn’t find my name on the passenger list and told me something to the extent of: ”Sir, your name does not exist! Your reservation is not valid. I’m afraid you are not flying today” (just as if I had made up the Flying Blue print out).

I asked her to look up my reservation using the PNR instead of my name. She insisted she couldn’t do that. She invited me to go to the AF ticket office and said I would have missed my flight no matter what as she was about to close it.

As I was standing in line at the ticket office, I called Flying Blue. The agent asked me for my PNR and said that the reservation had been cancelled. I asked why and she could not provide me with an explanation. I was furious and told her that I had to be in Montreal by the end of the day. She found space on a different flight and gave me a new PNR. At the end of the line I told the agent what happened and she avoided giving an explanation by simply saying: “if FB couldn’t give you an explanation, how do you expect me to give you one?” Anyhow, she made me pay 97 euros in taxes and guaranteed me that if my previous reservation had been cancelled my credit card wouldn’t have been double charged.

My connection time in Paris went down from 3 hours to 40min. My short haul flight got delayed but fortunately the CDG-YUL flight was heavily delayed as well. I was lucky.

What I’d like to know is an opinion on:

1) Why my original reservation disappeared.
2) What would have happened if the FB lady didn’t have any available seats?
3) Should I use FB EVER again? Or even trust AF e-tickets ever again?
4) Do you think I should write FB asking for some kind of compensation for the trouble they caused?

Thanks a lot and never ever trust the FB online booking engine – even if afterwards you call and they assign you a seat and say that everything is fine.



PS also another lady who was standing in line at the AF ticket office was complaining a similar problem with a paid ticket.

Aviatrix

What you need to do is ask for a copy of your booking including the booking history (which is the part of your booking record where the system logs all changes that have been made including details of who made them and when). The booking history will tell you what happened - there is no point in speculating until you've seen the booking history.

As for the check-in agent not being able to access your booking using the PNR... she was probably telling the truth. PNRs are system-specific - they only work in the system in which the booking was made. If an itinerary is stored in several systems then it will stored under a different PNR in each. If, for example, you book a KL/NW itinerary via a travel agent on the Galileo system there will be three PNRs, a Galileo PNR, a KLM PNR and a NW PNR. If you access the booking in any one of the systems you will find all PNRs inside it, but to access a booking in any particular system you need to know the PNR for that system. I always make sure I have all PNRs for any multi-airline itinerary that I book.

rcs85551

Did you ever get an e-ticket number? If not, you were never ticketed - hence, the reservation got cancelled closer to departure.

farci

This indeed may be the problem - it happened to me last year in ATL and I was only able to sort it out on the spot by calling FB Canada (much more helpful than France).

There seems to be a disconnect between reservations and ticketing which leads to this situation - not to mention mistakes in charges.

brenno

I had an award ticket that got cancelled. A friend did. Now this story. Are there more people having the same issues? It seems that they have a serious issue with the systems.....

Klm is Dead - Long Live KLM

I also had this issue for a family member I had bought an award ticket for. They spent > 1 hour on the phone at the check in desk first with Paris then with Canada to get the problem resolved. Almost missed the entire transatlantic flight.

Apparently AF tries to do the actual award ticketing as close to the departure rather than the time of the reservation (maximize extortionate fuel surcharges?) with the undesired effect that the ticketing never gets done. Allez. Completely unnacceptable but as discussed in earlier threads, happens a lot.

If you don't have an eticket number or a physical ticket you must assume that your award reservation will do you no good or will be cancelled.

brenno

What amazes me in all these stories is that everyone has to the job theirselves and apparantly the ticketing offices don't show their humane face and resolve the issues for them.

Jerene

I would suspect that AF want to retain the option to move passengers from heavily booked flights to less popular ones. Last year I booked an award ticket with six segments ten months out and the itinerary was changed no less than four times before the final ticketing. I guess that ticket was an easy target because there were so many alternative flights.

Jerene
(had other things to do besides to call and complain, unfortunately)