AA award redemption. Cannot OLCI: "We apologise that Online Check-In is not available as we cannot locate your e-Ticket in your booking."

I called CX in Hongkong (I am in India and their local office is closed today). They said there is no problem, and they confirmed that the ticket number in their records is the same number I have.

Is this a bug/feature from CX's infamous IT department, or should I worry about being denied boarding when I get to the airport?

EDIT: I just tried OLCI using my AA ticket number rather than the CX record locator. That works..it finds my reservation using just the ticket number, but then says "...we cannot locate your e-Ticket in your booking." Nice.

AFAIK, CX/KA can only accept OLCI if ticketed on CX/KA stock.

Nope, I have OLCI'd on AA awards before many times, including the outbound of the current trip.

The only previous time I couldn't OLCI, it was due to the ticket number being missing. I don't really need to OLCI, now I do it only as an early diagnostic tool to prevent last-minute hassles..

I also had the same issue with online check-in for my HKG-BKK flight tonight. I had tried since T-48hr to check in, only to be given the same error message as you got. This was a ticket issued by CX TPE, on 160- stock.

I called MPC, who then referred the matter to their IT Dept. They responded yesterday that it was a technical issue, which had been resolved for my ticket. As of yesterday night, I could online checkin, and everything back to normal for me.

Not true.

I was recently able to OLCI on CX flights issued on BA 125 stock and AA 001 stock. This was after CX migrated to Amadeus Altea Customer Management System ("Altea CMS") for check-in at all ports.

The only time OLCI seems to fail [false warning that e-ticket number is not found] is when a pax is originating from a port other than HKG (eg. BKK, MNL, SGN, BOM etc.) and has a subsequent connecting flight from HKG.

The online check-in system (when pax attempts to do online check in for AAA-HKG-XXX) seems to think that it does not have "control" of the e-ticket coupon (especially when it is issued by another carrier) for the subsequent HKG-XXX flight.

To the OP, was your ticket issued before mid to late November 2014 (before HKG migrated their check-in system to Altea CMS [while other Asian ports were already migrated])? If so, there is a possibility that the "control" of the HKG-XXX e-ticket coupon might still be with CX's old check-in system (CUPAC) and might not have been reassigned to Altea CMS! However, when checking in at the counter, the agent can always pull up the e-ticket image and gain control of the HKG-XXX coupon to allow for check-in to occur.

Note: Even if you are unsuccessful at OLCI, by the virtue of having tried to initiate a check-in session, SEC numbers will still be assigned based on the time you attempted check-in. You can still get a low SEC number if you attempt check-in once open even if the transaction is unsuccessful.

No, a change was made and so the ticket was reissued a couple of days ago. AA/CX sometimes screw up these things, hence my concern. I called AA and things seemed fine at their end.

Anyway, I do not need to OLCI; it looks like there is probably no problem that will hold me up at the check-in desk.

I'd been having the the same problem with a QF issued award, but I found that copying and pasting the booking reference from the e-ticket, rather than typing it directly, fixed it.

May be related to e-ticket failed validation?

Update: there was no problem when checking in at the airport.

OLCI is where all the problems are. As long as your ticket is in order and your have your credit card (in case it needs to be verified), it should be OK.

My daughter changed her flight about a day before her original return flight to US. A few days later, the e-ticket still showed the old date and there was still no charge to AMEX. It got me a little worried, but she still checked in at the airport with no problem.

I am flying SFO-HKG-PVG tonight. I couldn't do OLCI yesterday. I called MPC and was told that people cannot do OLCI if there is a transit with the new system. I remembered there was no problem not too long ago for a transit. I could check in both segments together, but I cannot even check in just the first segment now. There must be another enhancement to the system again .

That would be my guess about the OLCI problem. I've dealt with CX IT before, they are having some bugs with OLCI and have been trying to fix the issues forever.

Mum's doing SFO-HKG-DEL tomorrow. No issues with OLCI, and both segments showed up together (earlier than T-48 for the second segment).

Just had this happen to me on an AA-issued (a few weeks ago) eticket. The ticket was reissued a few times before. Tried both checking in by record locator and eticket number. Both got me to the first screen and the same error. Called CX and the first one said something along the lines of "American did update the record correctly, it's out of our control, but you can definitely check in at the airport." The second one didn't actually say American did something wrong, but said something along the lines of: "this is not issued by us, I'm sorry about that but you'll be able to check in at the airport without problem."

Both were able to read off the right eticket number to me.

Of course, this smells like an issue on the CX side. If the right eticket number is in the booking, why are you blaming another carrier for your system's inability to find it?

I went to sleep, woke up the next morning, and OLCI worked. So I guess if you get this error, uh, maybe try again in a few hours?

Given that it fixed itself after some period of time, and I originally tried checking in at the beginning of the 48-hour window, my guess is that this issue has something to do with check-in maybe not being open for connecting flights? My itinerary had connecting flights.