pokee

I booked two flights on AS for August - one with my AS points (from YVR -ATL on AA & AS) and one with my BA Points (from SEA-ATL on AS).

The reason: I prefer the YVR flight, but don't want to have to take a Covid Test to fly into the US from Canada, and I'm not sure if the test requirement to will be lifted by August. So I decided to book from SEA instead and drive across the border, but since the car borders might not be open by August, the SEA booking may be physically impossible. At this point, it's a wait and see situation, since things are changing week to week. So I kept both reservations.

Two days later, this is the email AS sent me:Hello,

We have found possible duplicate bookings for your upcoming reservation, confirmation codes:
....... .......

Because our inventory is limited, we will cancel one of your reservations.

To ensure we are cancelling the reservation you don't want, please contact us.

As always, thanks for flying with us.

Alaska Airlines.
‐--------------------------------------

In researching here, it looks like one of these flights will get automatically canceled, so I'll likely cancel the AS Reward and try to rebook that with different dates. I'll get to test out the "no fee" cancelation with partner rewards... wish me luck!

anteater

Have you tried using the link that says “contact us” or simply calling into Reservations? That seems like the quickest method to receive the most accurate information.

pokee

Yeah, that's useless. It just goes to "helpful links". I may try calling today, but that could be fun... ugh

anteater

ring ring..

You: Hello, my name is X and MP # Y. I have booked two trips on AS on similar routings because given the COVID-related travel restrictions with respect to A and B I want to ensure I will be able to reach my destination. With that said, I received a notification from AS that they detected a "duplicate" booking and may cancel one of my trips. Can you investigate this matter for me? Please and thank you.🤙🏻

Guate87

.
This AS, not DL. You won't have to wait 7 hours to get a live agent, and AS agents are nice.

When in doubt, call.

writerguyfl

Seriously? What's to investigate? The email explains why one booking must be canceled.

Making an agent search for the reasoning is a waste of everyone's time. So to avoid that, here's the reasoning from the Contract of Carriage:

Rule 7. Cancelation of Reservations and Prohibited Practices
D. Duplicate, impossible/illogical, fraudulent, fictitious or abusive bookings and/or reservations, or bookings and/or reservations made by Passengers with no intention of being used, are prohibited and may be subject to cancellation. A duplicate or impossible/illogical booking includes, but is not limited to, bookings for the same Passenger on flights traveling on or about the same date between one or more of the same or nearby origin and/or destination (such as SEALAX and SEAONT or SNASEA and ONTSEA), or bookings with Connections that depart before the arrival of the inbound flight.
Source: https://www.alaskaair.com/content/le...arriage/rule-7

anteater

COC says may be cancelled.

Investigate.. what AS can do given the person’s needs, their itineraries, and what AS is going to require (eg AS predicts they need the space and force a cancellation).

AS can be very accommodating, and it’s clearly an automated email. There’s no harm in pursuing a follow-up and requesting confirmation as to what AS will allow.

🤞🏻

pokee

Well, I called and waited only 5 minutes! Excellent! However, the agent had no idea this type of duplication would trigger an auto cancel. She was quite skeptical, but checked with her supervisor to confirm.

Supervisor confirmed that my second booking (the one made on BA with Avios) would be automatically canceled, since it was made 2nd. (Incidentally, any auto cancelation would've canceled the ticket, but not refunded points or fees... I would've had to call to release those).

The only question left was "When would the cancel trigger?" and none of the reps know. So she canceled my AS booking, since she technically could not manually cancel the BA award booking, and I got my points and money back (points were credited immediately, no cancel fee!).

I rebooked that flight with different dates. So no travel on any of the same dates, and no overlap of actual travel. BUT, one of the flights arrival is very close time-wise to the other one's departure. Is their system sophisticated enough to determine an illogical travel timing scenario? Does it easily identify a backup ticket? Does it go as far as to check partner duplicates? From my research, it definitely looks like it checks you are not leaving the same city on the same date. It MAY also check you're not booked to be "in the air" at more than one time. If my new booking sticks, it should confirm the system just checks this no duplicate on the city/date and overlap of travel. If it's more sophisticated, as the COC claims it to be, it'll trigger a duplicate again. I'll report back with my findings...

pokee

Update! Re-booking with different dates (departure a day earlier, and return a day later) has NOT triggered a duplicate booking notification. In other words, their system doesn't have a sophisticated algorithm to detect duplicate bookings with similar dates & cities. It's worth mentioning that i ensured to re-book the backup so i wasn't "in the air" at the same time on either booking. This may be as sophisticated as the duplicate check gets...

be_rettSEA

I think so long as it's not physically impossible (same time in air, flights booked in succession, etc), you'd be fine. AS has no real way of knowing whether you may have traveled on another carrier back and forth for a flight the next day, for example, so can't block those.

ShutUpDonnie

Does anyone have experience or anecdotes with this issue and award flights, both booked using AS miles?

I am unsure if I will be able to make an award flight on Thursday, so I have a back up booked for Friday.

It is definitely physically possible for me to make both flights, but it would be kind of crazy.

One leaves from SFO and the other from LAX, both with the same destination.

chrisl137

I regularly add backup flights to the outbound or return on a trip with paid tickets and haven't had any issues as long as they've been on different days. I have one right now with an RT leaving on a thursday night and the one-way backup on the outbound leaving on the tuesday before.

the42ndstate

I’ve occasionally had duplicate bookings (including two at the moment) with overlapping times. Not sure if it’s being monitored at the moment, but pre-pandemic, got caught by AS several times and asked to CX one of them or be CX’d.

ssk244

Just had my first DP with this.

I had booked 2 one-ways in cash (SFO-JFK as one trip and JFK-SFO as another trip) a few months ago. Fares were very high for this particular weekend and I kept shopping around but they haven't dropped. I ended up booking a ROUND-TRIP mileage ticket - the outbound matched my one way flight from SFO-JFK, the return was the same day but different time.

The reason why I did this was because I wanted to wait awhile to see if 1) fares dropped to something more reasonable and 2) do some forecasting to see how badly I would need the EQM.

After some thinking realized I needed the EQM and went to go cancel my mileage R/T trip. Upon looking into my reservations AS canceled my one-way from SFO-JFK. I didn't get ANY email or notification of this, it just POOF disappeared from my reservations list. First I went and canceled my mileage R/T reservation, then dug through my emails to find the Confirmation Code for the canceled one-way. Called AS and they were able to reinstate my reservation within 5 minutes. (Probably re-set my booking date though for upgrades...) I'm glad she was able to reinstate it because I was worried for a second they would have just taken my money and not even given it back in the form of a credit or anything.

I thought I'd be able to get away with this b/c of the aforementioned one way versus round trip, but guess no matter what if you book the SAME flight in different ways, one will be canceled. Interesting they canceled the one that cost money too and not the mileage one. However the system didn't 'catch' the one-way return since it was a different flight. I guess if I had booked the same flight both ways it would have triggered the same effect. Anyway, my lesson has been learned! Was a little freaked out for 5 minutes there.

anteater

I have had similar no-notice cancellations when I have booked a backup ticket to get home (e.g. winter / SEA IRROPS),and this experience is extremely frustrating. The only reason I noticed that a cancellation had occurred was because I went into my AS app and it displayed the, "A trip has been removed from your account" notice. Well, OK.. let anteater scroll through the Trips pane to see what is missing. In all of the scenarios, there was no email and I was not automatically refunded; I had to contact AS.

AS could should improve this functionality.