thelister

Hi peeps,

To spare you the long story, it turns out my OTA cancelled my original business class (I) booking without Cathay fully confirming flight changes.

Now, OTA denies everything and Cathay says they can’t confirm seats on new dates (as there is no I availability).

I spent at least 10 hours on the phone altogether with Cathay and they won’t do anything but waitlist me.

In this case, does anyone know when the seats would be confirmed?

Thanks in advance!

Update: Cathay was able to confirm seats for me on new dates, only caveat being that the codeshares couldn't be confirmed (i.e., need to buy positioning flights...). They issued the ticket under a new #, so the travel agent can't touch it...

percysmith

How polite were you?

Terrible Cathay service about rebooking
Chances of award availability closer to travel


Seriously, it's got more to do with how close in are you? While it's possible CX may make I available, they can choose to fly seats out empty or upgrade from W.

Also, is CX supposed to reticket you now?

Personally depending on where is the OTA and whether a confirmation is sent, I'd be booking the cheapest business class seat, booking it and claiming the OTA for the amount.

thelister

I was quite polite to the agents, but with all due respect to them, the call center was located in India and they had to put me on hold for long periods to figure things out. I was rather impatient at the end.

Cathay offered a refund, but given that the current prices for similar tickets are 2000$ more, I declined… they only reticketed me by putting me on a waitlist…

From the thread I read, it seems they are award tickets? I am a paying customer 🥲. The OTA is quite horrible and I do not expect them to compensate me for anything - only booked with them because I couldn’t find the same itinerary on Cathay’s website.

Do you think different call centers have differing amounts of power of what they can do ?

SilverChris

If the new segments were never confirmed to begin with, the OTA couldn't have reissued the ticket. They should be able to restore the original segments by working with the airline, at the very least. But this is for the OTA to sort out with CX behind the scenes.

I fares are not awards. They're discounted paid Business fares.

Since this is a third party booking, CX is unlikely to deal with you directly over the phone to fix any ticketing issues. This is why you're not getting any closer to a resolution by spending hours on the phone. There are internal sales support teams that deal with TAs, but it's up to your OTA to contact them. I think your best bet would be pushing them to restore your original date(s) in I, then working on finding an alternative.

thelister

Thanks for your reply! Apologies, I am a bit confused. If the new segments were never confirmed, would the OTA have the ability to cancel the original segments? Is it possible that it is actually Cathay's fault?

Yes, I understand I is discount Business Fares - I was a bit confused because the threads the other poster linked were about award tickets.

When you say them, I presume the OTA? Unfortunately they are not responsive, and I get transfered one person to the next for hours on end....

SilverChris

I don't know exactly what transpired during the change. It's possible for any incompetent TA to remove the segments without adding new ones, but it would be a very silly thing to do. When you go on the CX website to retrieve your booking, does it still show your original segments, or is it completely cancelled?

For fully unused tickets, you have no choice but to go through the OTA. You've unfortunately discovered the inherent disadvantage of OTAs who act as the middleman. If this is a partially-used ticket (i.e. travel has already commenced), CX might be willing to handle the booking directly.

thelister

Unfortunately, under Manage My Booking, all confirmed flights are gone, and I am left with two flights that are listed as "waitlisted". I mean, this wouldn't be a problem if they can confirm it two weeks in advance, but if they tell me the night before, that would be an issue, as it's from LHR to HKG.....

OTA is utterly useless....unfortunately...

CX828

Who is the OTA?

Cambo

OTA=Online Travel Agency

For CX, I always call the Hong Kong number. Other helpdesks tend to be pretty clue- and useless for anything more than the run-of-the-mill items.
Having your own VOIP line makes these long distance, long duration calls more affordable. When I call the CX Hong Kong helpdesk, it does cost me EUR 0.04, independent how long the call takes.

Can "segments" be removed from bookings: Yep.

Where the general public can only book fixed journeys, travel agencies (and the airline helpdesks) can (technically) add (about) whatever segments they want to an itinerary (and remove these too). Of course, only when matching the rules and when segments are available. This way, in the same PNR, you can have several parallel travel options waitlisted, until one option clears and one contacts the travel agency to ticket that specific option and remove the others.

In this case, it seems, the OTA did not only add some segments waitlisted, though also removed the original segments. Once removed, these segments are gone from the PNR. Reinstating would be possible against the current availability/pricing/rules.

However, when you have good standing with the airline, they might be willing to open-up a cheaper fare bucket and add from those to the PNR.

For your case, I don't expect this lower buckets opening to happen, given you booked through an OTA (signaling "go for a low price") and avoided the direct airline's offers. Such an action is an indication of shopping around and not a loyalty item towards the airline, so why should the airline be loyal to you ? Especially, when the sales situation is already in favor of the airline.

Given the original segments are already gone, I don't think, "being friendly", etc, will help in any way.

In case the original segments are still there, you may have some (minor) chances, to get things arranged, even when booking through an OTA. When contacting the airline, they will not touch the itinerary, though, you can inform what options are available, so you have more information to instruct your OTA what to do. When an OTA gets clear information of what can be done, because it's available, etc, you have far more chances the OTA is willing to dive into this, then, when the OTA has to sort out the options themselves, contact you, etc.

The OTA business model is "sell and don't bother", OTA margins are simply too small to have their staff diving into all kinds of change options. As such, my suggestion to "prepare" with the airline what is possible, and let the OTA execute the changes.

Officially, airlines don't have to help you with OTA requests, so, it'll need a lot of social "manipulation", to get the helpdesk to look into your request as well get the info you need to direct the OTA. And at the other side, it'll need social skills to get the OTA prepared to dive into your request and perform the changes, since that's not matching their business model.

Unfortunately, for your case, I think, it is not going to work, the original segments are gone, and you have no loyalty standing at the airline.

Your hopes: Maybe the waitlist clears or, you can manage to find a last minute offer, somewhat suiting your needs.

Or so to say, better book direct with an airline, unless you have very specific travel requirements, like mixed cabin classes, mixed alliance, all in one PNR.

brunos

Like CX828, I would also be interested to know who is the OTA.

My understanding is that you ask your OTA for a change of date.
If the OTA cancelled your tickets without reissuing new ones, the ball is clearly in their court. Apparently they claim something else.

Are you sure that the original tickets were issued, do you have a ticket number? When you asked the OTA for a change of date, did they advise you that the new dates required repricing to a higher bucket?

In any case, you have to deal with the OTA, not CX. In the past months, CX has seen a huge increase in demand and a small one in capacity. The cheap fare buckets that were available months ago, have now disappeared and unlikely to come back in the near future, including for LHR-HKG. Just get a refund (hopefully without cancellation fee) and try to get the cheapest ticket currently available. Prices keep going up.

thelister

Thank you all for the help! The OTA is called myholidays in Qatar, and their reviews on Google are horrid. My fault for not doing research…

Yes everything was ticketed. I reached out to Cathay to change my tickets as the OTA wasn’t responding to me after an involuntary change from Cathay.

I reached out to the OTA to ask for help again and they just cancelled my flight…. I am fuming..

thelister

Update: Cathay was able to confirm seats for me on new dates, only caveat being that the codeshares couldn't be confirmed (i.e., need to buy positioning flights...). They issued the ticket under a new #, so the travel agent can't touch it...

Cambo

Hmmm, service and the Middle East ?

You know, they have a huge amount of natural resources, which they make a lot of money off, effectively the most money they make. Sparrows (yes, birds) in the Business Class lounge, feeding themselves from the buffets, seems to be completely normal....

Read OMAAT about the service locals from the ME deliver. The ME airlines (and many other booming businesses) run on organized slave-labor from poor countries.

SilverChris

To be fair, OTAs are rather awful to deal with wherever they're based. It has nothing to do with "organized slave-labor", which is rather a questionable thing to say. CX itself outsources its call centre - does that make them as bad as the ME airlines?

Cambo

Pffff, that's quite a stretch of what I wrote.

OTA's: Yeah, in general not advisable, though I think, the more Western ones might score significantly better on the "service" scale, as (for example) the ME ones.

Regarding slave-labor: Ask all the poor workers who joined the work-force to build the football/soccer WK stadium in Qatar. Or ask how much personal freedom cabin crew at the ME airlines have, in their "off-duty" time. Or ask the same about the rigorous rule enforcement at the ME airlines. Ask pilots at the ME airlines, what happens, when they make a little mistake, ask them about just-culture, and you'll find out it's just brutal enforcement with punishment. Something the general public doesn't notice, may still exist. Emirates did have quite a few "near misses" in the past years, generally attributed by the in-the-know people to be a consequence of "strict rules" in the ME.

Of course, these things apply to a far lesser extent, when the person turns out to be a ME local. Rules are applied differently. Check on OMAAT, how local (male) cabin crew behave towards the non-native cabin crews.

Does this immediately apply to an ME based OTA ? No, though, an ME based OTA pretty likely will adopt the general culture of the ME. OP has experience with that, that the OTA just acted incompetent and shows little interest to correct on their errors. Which in turn is inline with the general impression of the ME locals, as written on OMAAT (of course, there are positive exceptions).

In principle also an OTA: Booking.com. I use them regularly and have to experience the first time, that my room was not available, when I showed up at the hotel. With other hotel booking sites, I have different experiences. So, yeah, this comes in different flavors (where Booking.com is originating from The Netherlands, with offices all over the world).