QT31415

Like many of you, I've been patiently wading through the novice agents on the Gold line, explaining the partner reservations' schedule changes and cancellations in an attempt to rebook them in a meaningful manner.

Yesterday, there was a schedule change on a BA flight to my daughter's graduation in July. The ticket was booked last fall, in J class, with an ongoing flight from LHR to Croatia. Like usual, we were having trouble with complimentary seat selection since BA doesn't recognize our OWE status so we called in to resolve the schedule change and obtain a seat. My spouse asked the initial agent, "are you ok with looking into a partner international ticket?" to which she answered, "of course, I've received all the training". She then went on to notice that our Croatia segment was in coach, and that a business seat was available, would we like it? "sure", my husband said, while I frantically waved in the corner miming cutting my throat and shaking my head No no no no...... You can guess what happened. The agent cancelled the SEA-LHR business flight and rebooked the whole itinerary as SEA-LHR coach, LHR-ZAG business. Realizing her error, she contacted the PIC (Partner International C?) who was unable to retrieve the ticket.

Sad to say, this is NOT the first time this has happened, but it's the first time its happened when there were no other options in award tickets other than the dreaded 280K AerLingus option. Summer tickets to Europe are also exorbitantly priced at this time. Looks like we won't be going to graduation. The PIC tried for over an hour, calling her BA counterpart, and still the ticket could not be rebooked at all, not even in coach. In hopes of consolation, we asked the PIC if she could share a direct access phone number to the Partner International Desk so we could avoid this happening again - she swore that there is no longer a number that can be reached by the public.

Anyone else have bookings that have been terrorized by a poorly trained agent?

beckoa

I would call back politely and see if someone could reinstate the ticket with the BA liason. There was a schedule change after all. Good luck!

notquiteaff

Yikes. What recourse do customers have here? Mistakes can happen, but IMO AS should eat the cost of this mistake if they can’t bother to train their agents sufficiently. If there is a 280k Aer Lingus option only, that’s what AS should give you if they aren’t willing to buy the ticket from BA that they wiped out.

What would DoT say?

mikexner

This scenario could permanently end my loyalty to an airline. I hope you will call customer care and share an update.

skier464

As a data point for this on another airline (United) this happened last summer and this was the resolution

We had IAD-BRU-ARN, then HEL-FRA-FCO then FCO-IAD booked. I found a better option and called united and asked them to change to IAD-BRU-HEL, ARN-FRA-FCO, FCO-IAD. The agent saw the tickets and did whatever process they do. THey came back and said well we changed one flight but the second wouldnt change for reasons? So she is like i have one confirmed and the other is the original. I was like well that wont work obviously, just change it the original and we can look at it later. She goes to do that.. and she had deleted the original from the first PNR and couldn't get it back. Long story short i found a TLL-FRA-Rome that worked (and got us a bonus country since TLL is a 2 hour ferry from HEL and we probably were going to go anyway) and they were able to ticket that.

We asked for compensation and they gave us 10k miles each (including to the lap infant, her first miles!) and they gave us 3 $125 vouchers as well. Something like that or more seems appropriate.

On a side note i wouldn't skip a graduation just because i have to fly economy. I mean really?

flytoeat

"The PIC tried for over an hour, calling her BA counterpart, and still the ticket could not be rebooked at all, not even in coach."

QT31415

We're pretty loyal to AS. Mistakes happen. I'm just trying to find a way past the gatekeeper agents for these more complicated international partner awards, which we use frequently. Called again yesterday about another ticket on BA - Expert Flyer had shown some business seats available on a route we had booked in coach, and usually the Partner desk person doesn't have trouble finding and changing them (they never delete the first ticket until they've booked the second), but the gateway agent could not locate the business seat and wouldn't call through to the PIC.

In the past, I've had the partner desk agent do some pretty incredible things with these award tickets, even break up married segments and book them independently. They're some of AS's most talented agents, and I miss them! It just seems like another devaluation of AS miles, especially when some of the newer agents have limited travel experience and do not even understand basic international geography.

jsguyrus

I just had this happen with a BA ticket. The routing was SEA-LHR-FCO in coach with a 4 day layover in London. I decided to move the LHR-FCO segment out one day. Got it all rebooked and everything looked fine, except a closer look showed that they had booked the SEA-LHR segment of the morning flight (BA52) to London instead of the existing evening flights (BA48). That wasn't going to work as this reservation was linked to another with other people we were traveling with.

I called AS and asked for the partner desk and got the usual run around with how the first agent was "more than qualified" to help out. Well of course BA 48 had no more coach seats open so the agent eventually got flustered and proposed we just move everyone to BA 52. That wasn't going to work for everyone's schedule so eventually, grudgingly, she sent me to the partner desk.

The partner desk, of course, knew exactly what to do, since it was the fault of AS that things got messed up. He requested a seat from BA which came through in a couple days. Problem solved.

olouie

Likely AS has implemented some metrics that discourage use of partner desk(s). Penny wise, pound foolish decisions but not surprising. Last few agents I talked to about award changes were pretty much incompetent. One didn't even know that you could book non-oneworld airline partner awards with Alaska. She kept insisting that Korean Air was "not a partner" when I asked about rebooking options on a JAL flight change. HUACA eventually worked but what a waste of time for everyone.

formeraa

I would have not given up so easily on this. I would have said, "It is a graduation that we cannot miss. It was the fault of an inexperienced agent. I expect you to make this right." (Full Stop). If the PIC refused, then I would have called AS Customer Service and reported the whole situation. Otherwise, they would get a DOT complaint.

lensovet

i mean for a graduation you could buy the ticket for cash, no?

but agreed that ultimately AS needs to make this right as it was 100% their fault.

QT31415

It's against my religion to book a r/t coach from SEA-LHR for $2800! We will get there, just not as easily as we'd like, and I dearly miss the competency of the Partner Desk. It was one of the biggest reasons we tried to keep status, because with the Gold free changes you can do marvelous things with AS awards.

olouie

$2800 per person? Thats nuts. I mostly see around $1000-1400 pp RT from SEA-LHR in July.

D582

If AS can't get BA to reinstate the reward space, then AS needs to pay for a cash ticket for OP, who at no point authorised AS to cancel this confirmed segment. That's the only acceptable outcome IMO.

Erasmus

Two things: 1) I would not let this go; it was an AS agent that f'd it up, and it is on a OW airline--they CAN fix this. They may need to escalate, but each OW airline has a liason desk to fix these sorts of issues. You have plenty of time, so there is no reason they cannot work it out. 2) The "Desk" may be gone, but, as you've experienced, there are indeed agents who know what they are doing. My SOP is to first ask some innane question but with specific jargon to get a sense of their level of competence, and find an excuse to hang up if it is clear they don't know what they're doing--which is increasingly frequent. I've been massaging QF J awards recently, and definitely don't want an agent releasing the over-water segments as Qantas is the worst when things go sideways...