Sometime in September, when CO had a sale from FLL<->LAS and FLL<->PHX, I made a double booking which was only noticed 24hrs after. The cost of $150 to change the tickets is more expensive than the $132 price of the entire itinerary itself. I am not too sure of how CO is accommodating to their PEs but I wonder if they will credit the miles for the other itinerary that I intend to check-in online but won't take the flights. Somehow, by not taking the flights which I could not actually fly, CO has the potential to sell the seats for a much higher price.

Has anyone had a similar situation like this before? Perhaps, CO Insider can shed some lights on this matter.

Thanks a lot.

David

I kind of doubt it. If cost of itin is 132$, means CO knows that it doesn't really have a chance of selling that ticket anyway.

As far as check-in but not take the flight - I think threads here established that if your boarding pass isn't scanned at the gate, you won't get miles. Of course I suppose if flights are at roughly same time, you can get to the gate, scan boarding pass, distract the GA (or say that you forgot your laptop in check-in area) and walk back out. I wonder if anyone done that

CO doesn't need to sell the ticket, they can use it for overbooking which will save them travel voucher compensation, provided the flights are full.

Unfortunately, the two itineraries have different starting points. One is flying out from LAS while the other is from FLL.

You will not get credit for flights you do not take unless it is CO's fault that you can't take them. Suck it up and eat the $132 as a learning expense and try not to repeat the error.

I realized that CO won't give out miles but I am inquiring if others had a similar experience with different outcome instead of getting response like just 'suck it up'.

Sorry if you don't like the answer, but I would be very surprised to hear that anyone has had any leeway granted in a similar situation. You asked specifically if you could check-in on line but not take the flights and still get the miles. The answer to that is no. And I cannot imagine that you're going to get a change fee waived either. Perhaps if you had called close to the 24 hour mark you could make a case. Now it is highly unlikely.

I am very much aware of the 24hr cancellation policy, which I missed because of work. Even so, if called after I noticed the error then or two months after, the response from CO would be definitely the same regardless. Thus, the idea I presented to check-in online and not to take the flights. Knowing that FTs may have the same situation but different outcome, thus the posting of the query.

If both flights are on the same day/similar time from different starting points, I'd be very surprised if CO's system doesn't catch it. They know that your butt cannot be in 2 cities at the same time and they can cancel either/both of the tickets. I'd actually think that you'd be best to cancel the one that you don't plan on taking. Yeah, you won't get anything out of the deal, but it could save you a huge headache if you show up to the airport only to find out they canceled your ticket for double booking.

I also agree that you'd be hard pressed to find anyone that got miles for a flight that they voluntarily didn't take. If you're IDB or VDB and route on a different airline, that's one thing.

You brought up an interesting point. Somehow, if CO system can monitor the flights that I am on during the day of travel and, based on what you wrote, will cancel both itineraries, why is it that the reservation system will not detect a new booking that is in conflict with an existing one? Are there two separate systems for CO? It seems like their reservation system will allow you to book another itinerary even if it is a duplicate with the same dates and flight numbers. In fact, I just did hold a new duplicate reservation and CO rez system accepted it. It looks like the double booking fail-safe check on CO system is implemented during the day of travel, not during the time of reservation where it is selling you tickets. UA's .bomb and AA.com will not let you do this.^^

I bet these are very different systems, and its not unreasonable. For example, what if you are Y-fare traveler who is in process of changing one ticket to overlap with another one (temporarily)?

I'm think so. You can try it yourself! It will let you book two itineraries for the same flights and same dates!!!

I know, which is why I am saying, it is not unreasonable for continental to let you do that...

CO's implementation of SuperDupeSnoop will generally prevent you from booking on the same flight twice with a non-refundable ticket. It will not prevent you from having two different bookings for travel at the same time. If it did we'd never be able to leverage throw-away ticketing and that would be bad.