A couple of days ago, I switched my return flight from Cancun on January 1 to later in the day. They told me (at Continental) to go to the airport to get reticketed if I have Y2K worries (which I do, especially in Mexico).

So I went today, Saturday, only to be told by 3 different agents (International Ticketing, BusinessFirst, and Customer Service Center behind security across from big PClub) that they could not reprint tickets.

What a waste of 2 hours. And of course, I let them know.

That doesn't sound right to me. Did you pay a change fee? Do you have a printout reflecting the change to your itinerary?

What reason did they give you that they could not reprint the ticket?

If it's important to you to have a ticket that correctly reflects your confirmed flights, a visit to a city ticket office may be worth your while. If all fails, I would definitely call a couple days beforehand to re-confirm.

Sheryl: I changed the tickets over the phone through the elite desk, with no fee. They told me I should get new tickets printed if I had Y2K worries.

They gave a a print out of some thing, which I don't know what, it looks like a PNR. It has our itinerary, but I won't do diddly squat if the computers don't work in Cancun.

The people told me that as long as it (meaning the computer reservation) says that I am on the 2:05 flight, that there will be no problems.

BUT WHAT IF YOUR STUPID 20 YEAR OLD COMPUTERS DON'T WORK!!?!?!?!?!?!??!?!?!??!?!

Interesting note: I noticed a lot of agents wearing "We're Y2K ready" pins.

Is this award travel? If not, why was there no change fee? Also, if this was award travel, do they even issue anything other than e-tickets for award travel anymore?

I diverge for a moment, but I think Y2K is going to be interesting.

Until 1/1/00, they have to convince that planes won't fall from the sky, and all will be sweetness and light.

Come 1/1/00 00:01, I expect the tune to change. Every problem will be Y2K's fault. Delayed posting of miles? Y2K. Late departure? Y2K (someone else's bug, of course)

It should make for interesting theater, if nothing else.


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"I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered. My life is my own."

Nope, not reward travel.

There was no change fee because I was told a lie a while back that on the fare I was on, I could change the return before departure with no change fee. The agent on the phone felt otherwise but checked the record for the reservation and, in fact, I was told that. (You thing I would lie to save $300 in pure, straight, right-into-pocket profit for an airline?) So, she changed me with no fee.

Update:
I called 800-WECARE2. I spoke to an agent that said she would look into it and I could call her back on Wednesday. I am going to MAKE them reticket me and send me the tickets, plus some sort of compensation for the 2 hours wasted.

Good Luck on MAKING CO do anything, especially in the compensation arena.

That's true, I think I am going to have to settle for mailed tickets.

Tute84: I had a similar problem a week ago Sunday at SFO. I have a OnePass reward on HP/QF/AS for a trip to Australia in April. One of the QF flights changed flight numbers and times, and I got a call from OnePass to get the trip reticketed. I asked if I could do it at the airport, since I was travelling on CO that Sunday anyway, and they said yes.

When I got to the airport, it was busy, and they didn't want to bother ticketing it. They didn't tell me they couldn't, they said they didn't have enough agents available to do it. I asked if I could get it ticketed in the next half hour as I was quite early for my flight. They said they would "try." After a half hour in the Pres. Club, they did manage to find the time to reticket the flight.

Originally, they asked me to go to the downtown ticket office to reticket, which would have been a major inconvenience. They also told me they would not be able to reissue the ticket by mail. But enventually (as usual with CO), all's well that ends well. The people at the ticket counter were exceedingly nice about the whole thing, they were just swamped.

It really surprises me that it is so difficult to get something reticketed at the airport. Am I just naive?

dgolds: The same kind of thing happened to me, it's just that the airport was EMPTY!!!

I was thinking of going up to the Pres Club but remembered 2 thing: 1) AMEX Plat. gives access only on day of travel; 2) The printers they have up there only have boarding pass stock anyway.

I have found that the agents at the customer service center in Terminal C are not nice - probably because they get the bulk of rebooks and people arent nice to them!

Jon,
I agree with your comments....EVERYTHING will be blamed on Y2K......stay tuned!