Ned1968

I was one of many who booked a fare at the beginning of the year (Alitalia - Florence to Dusseldorf return) that was subsequently cancelled and refunded.

In my case, the tickets include flights on Air France (CDG to Boston on 27 Oct), and BA (Boston to London on 4 Nov) in business

Although the Alitalia bookings have disappeared, the BA sector is still in MMB. I have a seat allocated (that I chose as BA Gold), and BA has just sent me a preflight email

I'm assuming these are "ghost" bookings due to communication gaps between booking systems and I would not actually be allowed to fly as they will be corrected at the last minute - is this correct? Would anyone chance their luck and turn up at CDG next week in the hope that AF will let them fly to Boston?

JAXBA

If your ticket has been refunded then you'll have nothing to fly on; you seem to have a reservation only. You'd be asked to pay if you try and check in.

KARFA

Have a look at your booking on the Saudi airways website. Is there a ticket number and what is the status of the booking shown?

Ned1968

Ticket number is there too - different booking ref to the original Alitalia one

Ned1968

Status shows as "ticketed" on the AA website too

Globaliser

Although there are many abstruse discussions here about possible criminal offences in many contexts - eg "theft" (or not) from lounges - that aren't worth participating in, it might be worth just mentioning that angle here.

You booked a ticket and paid for it. You were told (and you know you were told) that it was cancelled - and you seem to have accepted the cancellation. You have (it seems) been refunded the money. But you've noticed that two other airlines seem not to have noticed or been told that your ticket has been cancelled and that you have been refunded the money.

So, having already had your money back for these services and been told that the contract for the services has been cancelled, you are thinking of trying to make use of the services anyway by taking advantage of a communications gap?

It might be worth thinking about that.

Ned1968

Thank you - your kind concern for my mortal soul is duly noted

Kgmm77

indeed. It’s always amusing that such moral concern is pointed at individuals rather than the body corporate. The same people never scream theft when a passenger turns up with a paid for booking that hasn’t been correctly ticketed by the airline.

windowontheAside

Wouldn't that be because it's the individuals who are posting here? Not much point addressing an entity that isn't present.

Kgmm77

Isn’t most of the commentary on here about airlines? Kind of the raison d’etre of the site, no?

T8191

I have suffered from lurking 'ghost bookings' following changes to the original ... particularly with AA booked through BA. They clutter the MMB page on ba.com, and on MyFlights. I have learned to live with them, being a manifestion of non-integrated booking systems.

Globaliser

It's nothing to do with your soul, but much more immediately earthly concerns.

Indeed, if I were concerned about your soul, I would point out that some religions hold that it is immortal, and that it is your body that is transient and mortal.That's usually because that's an accident, not because the airline took the money yet intended never to provide the service.

Ned1968

Looking on the bright side, if Hell is longhaul plus then a business class ticket one way will be 240 TPs, so I'll be little closer to keeping my status for another year. Any suggestions on the best seats?

Kgmm77

I won’t labour the point any further, but you’ve no idea whether it’s an accident as you don’t know the knowledge and culpability of the senior management in question.

You could take the view that if it happens once it’s an accident, when it happens more regularly it’s preventable. It’s hardly beyond the wit of man to invent a system to reconcile PNRs and ticket numbers with a higher level of accuracy than currently. But it costs too much, so BA know it’s going to happen and accept the risk (and customer detriment).

Getting back to my point, I struggle to differentiate something like this from what the OP is suggesting.

Yet those posters who seem troubled by the latter are very highly correlated with those who explain away the former as an “accident”.

Globaliser

It seems to be an incredibly rare occurrence for someone to pay for a booking, and then when they turn up to fly, they discover that no ticket has been issued and that the airline nevertheless does nothing to get a ticket issued so that the passenger can take the flight that they've paid for, so that the passenger is simply unable to travel despite having paid.

But even then, that would not be enough to establish "theft" by the airline. Basically that would have to involve the airline never having intended to provide the passenger with the travel for which the passenger had paid. If you have examples of such cases, it would be interesting to know of them.

It is not enough for an airline's systems to be so rubbish that passengers routinely turn up at the airport to find that no ticket has been issued, and that they are inconvenienced and perhaps seriously delayed while ticket issue is sorted out and they can be checked-in. Rail all you like at preventable incompetence like this, but it does not amount to theft.

The OP, on the other hand, knows full well that they have not paid and their contract for travel has been cancelled, yet would on this hypothesis deliberately set out to use the travel that they have not paid for. Whatever the magnitude of the risk that this might amount to a crime, it is distinctly a different kind of case altogether.