sethb

I would have done one of two things, depending on my mood and feasibility.

If I was in a bad mood, and could get on the plane without physical violence, I would have done so. If they told me to leave, I'd ask if they thought they could get the police there before the crew timed out; and whatever they tried to charge me with, I'd counter that I had a valid ticket and boarding pass, and counter-charge them with Theft of Services.

If I was feeling nicer (not likely with UA but it could happen with a better airline), I'd just take out a credit card and tell them to sell me a ticket, I'd let the two airlines' legal departments argue over which of them would reimburse me the next day.

sethb

So UA was paid and denied you the flight. Since the flight wasn't oversold, it isn't IDB; I'd call it Theft of Services.

LAXJetter

Ruin everyones night including your own ^ @:-)

sethb

They already attempted to ruin mine, I'd offer them the chance to ruin everybody's (at great expense to them) or not ruin mine.

UA deserves no more consideration than that.

BayAArea

That's funny you should mention that. After I left the terminal and as I was dialing for hotel rooms, I thought about that - had they asked, I would have definitely pulled a CC out and said "here, charge away, get me home, and then I'll take it up with AA." As a PLT (and with nearly 1MM miles flown), I feel that I have a better shot with AA of getting to the bottom of it faster. I wasn't sure why the GAs didn't bring that up as an option, if the issue was simply that UA needed to be paid. Can you even do that at the gate?

It seemed to me that the GAs couldn't locate our tickets or see them as valid, so me offering to pay on the spot may not have helped that process.

Another thing I found interesting is that there was a number of AA passengers who boarded without incident, and their boarding passes scanned fine. There was a gate change for the UA flight around 2 hours before boarding, so I wonder if the gate agent that processed our 'boarding passes' were not the same one that processed the other UA boarding passes if those passengers arrived in the UA terminal later than I did. I guess we will never know.

Ludwig Gelobter

I had a similar experience with United and Ethiopian in December.

Bought a RT tix on Ethiopian, LGA-ADD-LGA, with the first and last segments, LGA-IAD were on United.

I had a printed itinerary, record locators, etc. I showed up at LGA at 5 AM for my 6 AM flite to IAD The United agent "saw" my ticket, but said "United had not been paid, and could not reach anyone at Ethiopian. In order not to miss my flite from IAD-ADD, I was forced to pay $ 605 for a last minute flight, for which I already had paid. When I got to IAD the Ethiopian agent issued by boarding pass, no problem, no comment.
Since Dec 20 have been trying to get my money back. Lots of "we are always happy to hear from our Platinum Elites" but no progress in getting a refund!!

Am now thinking of taking united to small claims court.

eajusa

I would be considering the same thing if in your shoes!

sethb

Start with a chargeback on the credit card, pointing out that you'd already paid for the flight and they made you pay again.

It might be Ethiopian who owes you, though. Chargeback their ticket, too.

Let the court sort it out. Maybe they both won't show and you'll win both cases.

LETTERBOY

What about the other pax? They don't deserve to be delayed because you want to stick it to UA.

sethb

It would be UA's choice to delay them, since UA had the option to just close the doors and fly the plane.

cooljw

What is with AA bookings on other carriers not getting ticket numbers to stick? I had a similar experience recently with award travel using AA miles on CX missing the ticket number. Fortunately I discovered the problem prior to getting to the airport, and FT was very helpful in helping me resolve the problem. Here is the thread I started:

AA Award ticket booked on Cathay - Urgent HELP Please!

Seems like some kind of a system issue, maybe on both sides. With these kinds of problems it is frustrating trying to find an employee who actually understands the problem in the first place, or employees who don't just point the finger at the other carrier - either way the consumer is stuck in the middle and loses.

OP I hope you get a satisfactory resolution. If not you may want to create a stink on social media - as no carrier wants bad publicity. For example, tweeting to AA helped me in my situation.

ijgordon

Lol, I was also imagining the scorched earth route. Worst case, you get a free night in a local jail. I think OP had to pay for his hotel.

Probably was well past the ticketing deadline.

Heck, AA can't even get tickets to stick on its OWN bookings. Happened yesterday, almost missed the check-in cutoff because it took them forever to figure out that when I changed my outbound due to a weather waiver, the return segments were not attached to the reissued ticket. Fortunately I had the foresight to have my Corp TA call AA while I was en route to the airport, but it took them a while to sort out. Nice AA.

On a related note - can you change your seat assignment after OLCI? For a while I know you couldn't and so I usually don't rush to do OLCI. In this case, if I had done it earlier, there would have been more time to sort out the problem instead of running it down to the check-in cutoff wire.

Steve M

Wait a minute there, big boy. I'd imagine that the police could get there mighty quickly if a passenger forced their way onto a flight without presenting a valid ticket, which is the case described here.

Others have touched on this briefly on this thread, but let me review: In order to board a flight, you must have BOTH a) a boarding pass, and b) a valid ticket (i.e. "flight coupon") for that flight. Generally speaking, you can't get a boarding pass without also having a valid reservation, but that's a separate issue.

The flight coupon gets surrendered at the time of boarding ("lifted" in airline parlance) and that's where the airline formally gets paid for the flight. Consider the case where the flight coupon was issued by another carrier (because of an irregularity as was the case here, or because of a multi-carrier itinerary where one of the carriers issues all of the coupons, and the non-issuing carriers must collect the coupons to turn into the issuing carrier in order to get paid).

If you are unable to present both the boarding pass and the flight coupon, then you don't board the flight. The why you don't have both may be relevant down the line as to accommodation and compensation, but as far as getting on the flight, either you have both to present, or you don't, and if not, it doesn't really matter why not.

I'm sure some people reading this are screaming right now, so let me add a bit more. Wind this back to the era when everything was done with paper tickets. You present the paper ticket at check-in, and they look up your reservation (or perhaps just create one on the fly if you have an open ticket) and issue you a boarding pass. They tear the coupon for that segment out of your stapled stack of coupons, staple it to your boarding pass, and put that in the front slot of the boarding pass holder they give you, and put the remaining coupons (or possibly just the itinerary page and passenger receipt if that's all that's left) inside the boarding pass holder. When you board, the gate agent takes the boarding pass and coupon out of your holder, tears off the big part of the coupon and keeps it. That big part of the coupon is how the airline gets paid, if another airline issued the ticket. They had to physically turn it into the IATA clearinghouse and have it processed. Note that all of this is done so that multi-carrier itineraries can be completed without any cross-airline computer connections needed, or even a computer at all at a remote airport.

Consider the case where the passenger somehow loses the flight coupon between when they check in and when they try to board. Without the coupon, they don't get to board. It doesn't matter that the boarding pass would not have been issued had the coupon not been presented at check-in. The airline gets paid only by physically collecting the coupon at the gate and turning it into IATA (if it's not one of theirs). And, without the coupon, the boarding pass usually doesn't indicate whether or not the coupon is one of theirs, so they can't assume that they got paid anyway if the coupon is missing. It doesn't matter that the gate agent can assume that the check-in desk verified the coupon. It doesn't matter that the passenger might have a receipt for the coupon. The passenger needs to present the coupon at the time of boarding, as that's where the airline physically collects it as payment for the flight. It would be similar to the airline collecting cash payment at the gate for a flight at time of boarding: the fact that the check-in desk verified the passenger has the cash at check-in before they issue the boarding pass really doesn't matter if the passenger doesn't actually pay for the flight as they board.

Now, extend all of the above to today's world of electronic ticketing. Not much has actually changed, except that the coupons are now electronic and are no longer bearer instruments. The plus side is that the passenger can't lose the coupon any more, but the minus side is that there can now be computer problems with the coupons. The boarding pass will indicate whether it's associated with an electronic ticket or not. If electronic, then the coupon is associated with the boarding pass in the computer and is collected/lifted automatically when the passenger boards. If not, then the boarding pass must still be physically presented along with the paper coupon in order to board.

So, how does a boarding pass get issued when the coupon is missing? At the end of the day, it's almost certainly an agent mistake at the time the boarding pass was issued. What typically happens is that if the reservation is flagged as "paper ticket", then there's an indication of such on the agent's screen and they're supposed to physically verify that the passenger has the paper coupon before issuing the boarding pass. The computer assumes that the agent did this, but if they miss this step (which might be easy to do these days, when 99.9% of the tickets are electronic), then the passenger can find themselves in the situation of the OP: at the gate with a boarding pass but no coupon, and unable to board the flight. But the fact that the check-in agent failed to notice the missing paper coupon doesn't entitle the passenger to board the flight without a valid ticket.

Note that they are trying to board a flight on an airline other than that they paid their fare. Although the paperwork problem may in fact not be the passenger's doing, that doesn't entitle them to board any flight on any carrier without being able present payment for that flight, which is done through presentation of the coupon (either electronic or paper).

TerryK

Thanks for detailed update. Looks like you did have AA eticket printout. Great job AA.^ UA won't provide it to me when interlining.

AA agent and OP did everything correctly yet UA failed to receive AA eticket. I see two failures:
1) AA system failed to pass eticket to UA. It is unclear which system is at fault as there are reports of failure with AA and UA to/from other airlines too. I personally just avoid eticket, if possible, when interlining. etickets work fine with online bookings but fraught with issues when interlining.
2) UA check in agent, not gate agent, failed to notice paper ticket requirement when issuing boarding pass. He/she could have alerted paper ticket requirement to OP and sorted it out.
3) I would not fault UA gate agent. Not all agents are trained to capture interline etickets when they were not sent over correctly. It is possible for force it if you have full valid interline eticket number but it is an advanced procedure and may take a few minutes. UA gate agent either was not trained for it or was simply out of time.

In summary, UA agent was at fault. AA system, not agent, might be at fault too.

TerryK

Truly good informative post.^:-:

To answer question raised by thread title: A boarding pass is always a boarding pass but is only valid with flight coupon attached. Flight coupon can be either electronic (99.5% of the time) or paper.