Do I have a seat on this sold out flight?
 

Hi all

On Thursday I swapped some Dubrovnik flights to Faro flights, departing tomorrow at 14.05. The agent said he would call ticketing after my call to get it put through but as of this morning the ticket number has not appeared in the app. I rang up today and was told that the ticketing office had closed - and there was a further complication where the quoted fare had increased after the first call had ended, meaning there was some reconciliation to be done with a senior ticketing person - this was why the first agent had not managed to complete the booking.

So I am now calling again when ticketing open at 9am tomorrow as the agent I dealt with today is not in the office until 11.30 (and I would like to be at the airport by then). I am relaxed about the last minute issuing but I have noticed that there are no economy seats being sold anymore for this flight.

Does my unticketed reservation already hold one of the seats on this apparently sold out flight or will should I be prepared to face more difficulties tomorrow morning when I call up and they attempt to issue it?

Thank you!

Honest answer would be only the ticketing agent can answer if they blocked a seat for you or not. If not I would expect them possibly looking at either bumping someone or you to Business. At worst they could screw up all togeather and your not flying as technically your not ticketed

Faro, a city of just 450,000 souls, has the benefit of four flights tomorrow from BA. Your one is an A321 and it does indeed look close to oversold - but not quite. Moreover the number of no-shows at the moment is higher than normal, for reasons we can all guess.

Is there anyway you can get to LHR for 09:30 tomorrow? Or even earlier? There are a few seats on the other services, and though you won't be going anywhere unless ticketed, you probably don't want to be on the final service. You're doing the right thing to call as soon as you can. It may frankly be better to pay any excess and try to claim it back, if the sum involved lower than the value of missing the flight.

You would hope they blocked a seat, I'm surprised whoever you spoke to today couldn't see if there was a seat assigned to your name or not, would seem a fairly basic function....... I guess if your desperate to travel tomorrow a backup plan may be wise.

I can get to Heathrow early but I am actually travelling on that 14.05 service with someone (who is on a separate booking) and they are the driver for the trip - so whilst not the end of the world, the possibility of 3/4 hours sitting at Faro airport waiting for a later BA flight to arrive doesn't appeal.. equally I don't want to miss one day of a three night trip!

Hmm. What a bore. And annoyingly it can't get sorted before 9am as ticketing don't even open until then - so they will miss the chance to get me on the 11am flight if there is a problem. Unless I get myself to the airport anyway as CWS suggests.. argh.

Would an agent be able to tell me this evening if I have a 'slot' (what word do we use when it is not a ticket?) on that flight that can be successfully ticketed tomorrow regardless of other bookings on the flight? That would mean I could relax tomorrow and not need to attempt any timing gymnastics

Does the app show you have a seat allocated? Seating and ticketing and being bumped are actually three separate things. You can be ticketed, not have a seat and be bumped. You can be unticketed, have a seat, and be bumped. However unticketed = not flying. If you have a seat on the app the agent can't say more than that. If you don't have a seat then my understanding is that ticketing is 24/7 but presumably there is a particular person that needs to get to look at your reservation (presumably to squash the extra cost). So I have a feeling that if you are ok to pay up you could call the USA number and force it through.

I think you’ll be ok, as you have done everything at your end and it’s BA that needs to do the re-ticketing.
You are also departing from LHR where they could presumably do this for you, rather than an outstation airport where it might be harder.

It’s hard not to worry though, I agree.
Good luck

If the flights show in MMB then availability is held and it just needs ticketing. This is the normal process.

That is a relief to read and from an impeccable source! So I don’t need to worry about getting on that flight as long as they ticket me in the morning.

Thank you Anonba

How did you get on?

I called just before 9am and after the now obligatory disconnection at the 5 min mark, the agent called me back with a confirmation of the ticketing. So am Heathrow bound! Thanks for the advice everyone. My first visit to the Algarve awaits.

I wonder if this would have been picked up by my flight time regardless, somehow I doubt it, there must be many of these ‘still unticketed’ issues happening this summer due to last minute changes. This is my second this month.

Yes, I'm replying to posts about this, which I haven't had to do since the end of last year so something is clearly not as good as it should be. I think we have had some insider reports that things are very busy in that department at the moment.

You wouldn't have been able to check in, so it would have been sorted at T5.

Quite. I am awaiting a nil value reissue requested in June...

The core issue seems to be that if you book using a future travel voucher, the ticket has to be re-issued manually as the voucher is e-ticket number from the previously booked flight, so presumably they are inundated with requests. I imagine they then get a lot of people calloign worried, when a few days before your flight an email comes through confirming your flight has been ticketed, but it looks like you've booked and paid for a new flight. The staff I have spoken to recently all seem a bit fedup with the way the vouchers work!