formeraa

As long as airlines continue to use 1960's=era technology (and I mean that in the BEST sense), this sort of thing will happen from time to time. As other posters have mentioned, there are specific airlines where it is most likely to happen. These airlines are very protective of their inventory and don't trust AA to directly access their inventory.

That said, anytime you purchase a ticket from aa.com, everyone should check back and make sure that status changes to "Ticketed".

ijgordon

Yes, though it's not clear how long elapsed between booking and the notification from AA. If it was a couple of days, that's reasonable IMO. But if AA didn't notify him for 2 weeks, that's a problem.

Dr. HFH

Hyperbolic thread titles which are untrue and designed to be clickbait are unhelpful. You didn't have a ticket because you never paid for it. Thus no ticket was never cancelled.

Something more along the lines of, "AA Unable To Ticket My Itinerary Due To Probs With CX" would be a better, and more accurate, thread title, no?

ijgordon

For chrissake, if the title used “reservation” instead of “ticket” it would be more technically correct, but it’s not clickbait in either case.

Often1

1. OP was affirmatively notified.
2. One need not check online, what one must do is assure that one receives an e-ticket receipt by email. OP did not.

This issue has little to do with technology and everything to do with carriers such as CX wanting to take advantage of IATA ticketing rules. CX could easily confirm positive space in seconds if it wanted to do so.

enpremiere

Notified that the ticket couldn't be issued...

Good for the OP that they were contacted so that they were aware and could take steps when the original bucket is no longer available. The point is that in this era of EDI in other industries, the ticketing crap-shoot is just ridiculous. Realistically, how would a non-frequent flyer know that they should look for a ticketing confirmation? From their perspective, they went to the site, saw what they assumed to be a revenue ticket, entered payment information, and now they're told "sorry, despite the fact that we showed you this revenue fare, you can't have it."

Does the irregular flyer know the difference between a reservation, a booking, a PNR, and a ticket? Probably not. If I go to a movie theater and buy a ticket, did I buy a booking and a little minion in the back then checks and sees if they have seats before giving me a ticket at the already agreed-upon price ahead of entering the cinema or telling me that they're sold out at that level? That's just junk.

Anyone who makes excuses today about the need for days of waiting for tickets to be issued (or not) when the booking deserves to work for an airline, preferably a miserable LCC. That industry just needs to be completely disrupted.