Seat 2A

Have any of you encountered this message of late when attempting to finalize/confirm/pay for an award itinerary on JAL or SQ? (3 times on JAL, twice on SQ)

"We're sorry, we aren't able to confirm space on these partner flights. Please try again and choose different flights, dates or cities"

Mind you, I'm looking for First or Business Class only. That space is hard enough to come by without this nonsense....

Speedbird84

Far too often. Was previously limited to KE but in the past week or so have seen it when trying to confirm JL and CX in J as well.

For me it was temporary, and trying the same booking a couple hours later worked, which to me says it may be a short term communication blip, but who knows 🤷

Seat 2A

Thanks Speedbird! I just got back in country this morning, so I'll give it another try. If I don't post here again, that'll mean I had success.

jsguyrus

You can add LATAM to the list. In talking to the international desk they keep telling me their system doesnt communicate in real time so I am seeing inventory that doesnt exist. I have my doubts as it only seems to be an issue for J bookings.

Eastbay1K

I wouldn't doubt that there's a lot more Y inventory so real time or not, it will still exist when booking.

While I am not particularly familiar with the specific workings of SABRE (the GDS AS uses), I am with another GDS, and in lay terms, it would seem that the user interface isn't doing a real time "direct link" availability search, which would seem to be an easy programming fix ...much easier than an upgrade processor.

jiburi

Nonsense or not, I don't think it's realistic to expect full transparency on availability as every airlines have different computer system, IT, and network synergies, etc. I think every airlines will try their best to accommodating your booking but if it doesn't automatically confirm your booking, the best we can hope for is their willingness for their agent to communicating the LIVE availability with the Alaska agent to arriving to a workable itinerary. We will need to be patient as they sort things out.

Jiburi

Eastbay1K

There's really nothing to work out. AS can view live availability if it wishes. There can be an occasional communications glitch, or someone else could be viewing the same and confirm the seat before you can, but say, an SQ communicating to an AS agent the "LIVE" availability as you say doesn't prevent someone else from booking it as it is being communicated, if the SQ agent doesn't book it and queue it to AS. And if the AS agent can't ever see the "LIVE" availability, communicated or not, s/he can never book it.

Eastbay1K

I have absolutely no personal knowledge of this, but I expect this is exactly what is occurring:

This is an example (SABRE - AS native system would have a somewhat different coding)
>A1FEBSFOSIN+SQ (the search type that we're probably getting)

Response
+SQ DISPLAY* WE 01FEB SFOSIN+16:00 HR
1+ SQ 31 Z9 C9 J8 U1 D0 S9 T9 P9 L2 R0+SFOSIN 930A 705P+359 0
2+ SQ 33 Z9 C9 J9 U0 D0 S9 T9 P9 L8 R0 SFOSIN 810P 545A2359 0

>L¤SQ/A1FEBSFOSIN (exactly the search type we need)

Response
*** SINGAPORE AIR ***
WED 01FEB23 SAN FRANCISC/SINGAPORE *SQ
** SINGAPORE AIRLINES - SN ** 54 WE 01FEB 0000
1 SFO SIN 01/0930#1905 SQ 31 Z4 C4 J4 U1 D0 S9 T4 P4 L2+359*C
2 SFO SIN 01/2010*0545 SQ 33 Z4 C4 J4 U0 D0 S9 T4 P4 L8+359*C

Now, it is always possible that SQ will inhibit AS from viewing various award seat buckets, which is highly unlikely.

985X

I had the same issue with JL Y and FI Y bookings. Res agent told me that's because the search engine doesn't display real-time availability..

jsguyrus

It high time for Alaska to fix this know issue which has been rearing it head more and more now that J availability is tough. What exactly is the point of having online booking capability if you cant tell if its real or not? Might as well just have anyone that wants an awards seat call in.

Eastbay1K

Except that the Frontline agents don't see anything different than we do.

olouie

Yep - sadly they just use the website information so there is little they can do. Online booking is nice, but also not so useful if inventory isn't real time and site is full of bugs that not even agents can get around.

jsguyrus

I don't know about the front line agents but the international desk definitely can see things we can't. In my experience the front line agents try to help, even when you tell them its complicated and you need the international desk. Once they cant resolve the issue they call the international desk and try to be the go between which also doesn't work. Eventually, they just transfer you to the international desk which is when you can get business done.

When I spoke to the international desk this week about LATAM J space they were able to see there was zero J space for the entire month of October, despite it showing online and to the front line agents.

Eastbay1K

In my last experience, "international desk" agent was not willing to help to escalate an issue (as posted in the Partner Desk thread) until I had to push and push and push until he'd transfer me to someone else to resolve an issue, which is now tentatively resolved. Had I accepted his first through fifth (or maybe more) of no there's nothing we can do, I'd still have an unworkable reservation.

Meanwhile, the purpose of this thread, and the "partner agents" generally have been nothing but a source of frustration and aggravation for years, and can't particularly be cost-effective for AS, unless most people are accepting the initial answer as gospel and giving up. My last call was three agents, finally reaching someone who could patch over a simple request to SQ for an SQ-caused issue.

jsguyrus

I think you hit it on the head, most people give up after being told "its impossible", particularly after being told by a couple different people. My guess is there is only a small number of FT folks who know how the system is supposed to work and knows what CAN actually be done.