CX Booking Error
Dec 27, 2008 | 2:55 am
#1
Original Poster
Join Date: Dec 2007
Location: HK
Programs: CX DM / Bonvoy LTT
Posts: 299
CX Booking Error
Anyone had this?
No fare can be found for the flights and/or cabins you selected. Please search again and select another cabin and/or different flights. (5685 - 2201)
Dec 27, 2008 | 3:59 am
#3
Suspended
Join Date: Jun 2002
Location: Hong Kong
Programs: None any more
Posts: 11,017
Yes, many times.
It's one of the many reasons mrs christep and I now use Cebu Pacific for our regular trips to the Philippines, for example. (That and the fact that CX is twice the price...)
As somebody used to say in their advertising years ago: "It's good to have a choice!". I'd rather forgotten that after being sucked into the whole status thing as a CX Diamond for a few years.
It's one of the many reasons mrs christep and I now use Cebu Pacific for our regular trips to the Philippines, for example. (That and the fact that CX is twice the price...)
As somebody used to say in their advertising years ago: "It's good to have a choice!". I'd rather forgotten that after being sucked into the whole status thing as a CX Diamond for a few years.
Last edited by christep; Dec 27, 2008 at 3:41 pm
Dec 27, 2008 | 8:48 am
#6
Suspended
Join Date: Jun 2002
Location: Hong Kong
Programs: None any more
Posts: 11,017
The point is that the booking engine offers you the fare and then fails. If it said "fare not available" then fine, but you're asking for a specific flight, it offers you the fare, you enter all your details, and then it says "not available" and offers a higher fare. It's done it so often to me that I regard it as "bait and switch" rather than the very small chance that someone else booked the last available seat whilst I was entering my credit card details (and any decent database system would have locks that prevent that happening anyway).
Last edited by christep; Dec 27, 2008 at 10:19 pm
Dec 27, 2008 | 4:25 pm
#7
Original Member
Join Date: May 1998
Location: HKG
Programs: BA GGL, CX DM, AA LT GO, Marriott LT Titanium, Shangri-La DM, Hyatt Globalist, Hilton DM
Posts: 2,030
I experienced this a week or two ago too while booking my HKG-PVG trip - there's no way all the flights were all full that day. and there's still ample availability on all flights maybe a few hours before I saw this, and then again a few hours after - so it's definitely some system error at some point.
