Yesterday, I had put a reservation for BOS-EWR-LGW-EWR-BOS on hold at Continental.com, since it came up at the exceptionally low price of $312.51 with taxes and fees. Today, I went to purchase the ticket through Continental.com, and it seemed that everything had proceeded normally, as I got the normal confirmation screen that my ticket had been issued. However, when I went back into the reservation, it indicated that the ticket had not yet been purchased.

I proceeded to call Continental Reservations (through the magical "gold elite priority line") to ask them if the ticket had indeed been issued. They said no, that my itin was still on a courtesy hold, but that they could issue the ticket to me for $547.51, which was the price in the reservation ($235 more than the price that was appearing on my screen at that very moment). I inform them about this discrepancy, to which the agent responded that I would need to contact Continental.com special support.

I then proceeded to call special support, who pulled up my hold and told me that it was indeed for $312.51, and that the ticket had not yet been issued.

After a few minutes of typing, she then told me that my charge card had already been charged $547.51(!). She then told me that she would be issuing a credit of $235 to my charge card.

At this point, I don't know what exactly is happening. I just received my eticket confirmation via FAX with the total charge of $547.51 listed. Got off the phone with reservations again, and this time they said that the ticket was indeed $312.51. I'm not sure how much I am paying for this ticket, but I think I have a ticket.

Updates to be posted

Exactly WHAT is the problem???

This is a (revenue) "enhancement".

- Pat

My first update...

I pulled up my reservation once again, and my booking class was changed from B/Q to all T. Not that it makes a difference to me (a seat is a seat, and I wasn't doing this for any special promos), but interesting nonetheless.

Idea number one--Continental.com goofed and gave me B/Q class seats but priced my itinerary at the unavailable T class price. Thus, when I actually tried to ticket it, it went ahead and sold me the ticket at the B/Q fare.

They can enhance their revenue as much as they want, as long as they're not enhancing it from my wallet.

I guess they finally caught on to my screen name...

I hope you got some nice toppings for your $235.

You're not alone Enhanced --Continental.com is 3 for 5 for me for improperly holding/ticketing reservations since being relaunched this summer.

Two of the three times involved buying an unrestricted Y --then thanks to the magic of continental.com of converting an unrestricted Y to a restricted/non-refundable Y, the fare rules changed. Then AU kicked in to upgrade the reservation to 1st class ...all before the ticket was actually charged to my credit card. As a result, I get emails from continental.com that say "oops, we haven't worked out the bugs in automatic upgrades for elites, sorry about that". After they send that email, the flights show online, but the fare-class and fare paid don't match up to anything real.

With the third time (not quite the charm), the fare class and fare itself would jump around each time I checked out the reservation online. One day it was a K class at $515, the next it was a Q class at $923, and even showed at one point as a $10 R (reward?) ticket for some time. Apparently that e-ticket reservation was haunted --and continental.com ended up mailing me a paper ticket with my originally-intended fare class and fare paid showing on the printed tickets.

Hi Y'all

Ironically, most airlines website don't access the reservation system (CRS) directly. The website is on a server that knows how to draw the pretty windows and such. When you ask for info on skeds, fares and such, the server transfers the request to a fron end processor that re-formats the pretty window into the same computer entry an agent would make to ask for the same info, then sends the request to the CRS. The translation is done in reverse forthe response. So there is a time lag in transferring info between the 2.

On any airline's website, clicking the "purcase" button doesn't actually produce the ticket. It places your reservation (PNR) on a queue to be processed, but records the fare quote in the PNR. Fares aren't garunteed until ticketed, but clicking the "purchase" button should lock in the fare as of that moment in time (there are literally hundreds of fare updates every day).

It appears to me that during the time lag of communicating between the two systems either "T" class inventory sold out,or the fare increased. This would cause a furthur delay in the actual ticketing because the PNR quote doesn't match actual. This would put your PNR on a "bounce" queue to be reviewed manaully by an actual person.

From what you've said here, I'd say that "T" class sold out between the time you clicked "hold" and the few seconds it took to advise the reservation system of the potential purchase. The system did the next best thing and re-booked you into the lowest fare class available just to hold you a seat as promised. Once a human could read your PNR's history and determine the sequence of events, they did the right thing and had yeild management allocate one more "T" class seat.

Steve

This definitely sounds plausable, and Continental at least did the right thing (from my perspective) by allowing the web services agent to go back and oversell T class.

My concern, though, is twofold: (1) What would have happened if I didn't catch this--would I just have automatically been billed the higher amount (which seems to be what the web services agent told me on the phone, since there was already a charge towards my credit card for the higher amount), and (2) I purchased this ticket about 30 minutes before the hold was going to expire--would I have lost the reservation if they hadn't gotten around to ticketing it off of the "bounce" queue?

Also, although the "bounce" queue seems reasonable, how come the first reservations agent could not see this in my PNR and inform me accordingly (all she saw was the higher-priced reservation)?

I'm heading to the CTO right now to get a hard-copy printout of my receipt (hopefully showing the correct price) and make sure everything is OK.

Well, it looks like I get bonus toppings on my pizza, and I didn't even have to ask!

I went down to the Boston CTO this morning, and asked them to peer into my reservation. After some puzzlement (and me explaining to the agent what had happened last night), she told me that the ticket had been reissued at $312.51, and even managed to print me out a receipt to this effect (she wouldn't give me a copy of my PNR, though). I then told her that I was concerned that my card would be charged $547.51 rather than $312.51, to which she responded, "Oh no, I wouldn't be worried about that, because it looks like they charged your card for both $547.51 and $312.51 (!!!). Don't worry, though, the $235 credit is also in here. See what gets posted to your credit card."

I just called Diners Club, and nothing has been posted to my card as of yet. Who knows, I might now be paying $625.02 for this ticket...

Generally speaking, COOL is a poor quality product. The "Search by Price" feature often returns inaccurate results. The "Search by Schedule" feature often returns routings for which connecting flight times don't work. The pricing feature often gets hung up. The fares often change from the time one clicks "purchase" until the time for the confirmation to get back.

IMO, CO makes it difficult to give them revenue through using COOL.

I'm tellin ya...this airline is going down.

big

well, judging by the stock price, others agree with your thought.

http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=cal&d=v1

[This message has been edited by fly co to see the yanks (edited 10-11-2002).]

I just heard about CO's BF sale over Thanksgiving weekend (when this itin is for)...maybe this is their way to "encourage" me to buy up to Z class. I'd probably do it, too, if only I weren't on a student's budget...

As long as you have a receipt that is correct, don't worry about what they charged your card. You can always just dispute it later and let Diners Club take care of it.

True enough, except for the fact that by looking closely at the new eTicket receipt, it indicates that this new $312.51 ticket (ticket number 005xxxxxxx619) was in exchange for another ticket (/EX 005xxxxxxx588).

Thus, Continental could always argue that the original ticket I purchased was indeed $547.51--and I have no written proof that they have issued me a $235 credit to my card.

Also, the form of payment (FP) on the new ticket receipt indicates my Diners Club account, which worries me a bit--if they did indeed issue me a credit for the difference, shouldn't the FP be listed as credit from the previous ticket?

I guess there really isn't anything else I can do at this point until I see what gets posted to my statement.

I may be totally wrong, but reserving an itinerary (via the web or telephone) locks in only a seat not the price until midnight of the following day. The seat price can go up or down. The low price you quoted is a really low price. I too would be pissed not to get it. Out of curiosity, why didn�t you purchase it when you first saw it?

MisterNice