atsak

Got an interesting situation - I booked back in March three business class tickets CGK - SYD on Garuda using Skymiles. Got the email from Garuda saying booking was confirmed and reservation was guaranteed; so proceeded with booking the other 2 business class revenue tickets, and prior to this had scored 5 business class seats YYZ - CGK on CX. All was looking great for a long but fun trip on a couple new airlines for the family and in lie flat seats.

Two days ago got a sched change email from Garuda for both the revenue and redemption flight. Happened to log in today, and lo and behold the Skymiles booking is now on hold, and no longer showing confirmed. Called Garuda because I thought it was maybe just a web glitch; they advised the ticket was no longer confirmed and Delta had to reissue. Called Delta, and they were saying there was no availability; I advised that we had a confirmed booking and had now made other arrangements around that, and explained I had both ticket numbers from Delta and an email from Garuda showing confimred and guaranteed. While waiting on hold for 30 minutes, the agent was trying to resolve, and then I got disconnected (hung up on or just bad luck, hopefully the latter).

I'm back on hold now for undoubtedly another 30 to 45 minutes or so to try again. Will update here if I get news either way.

Not liking what I'm hearing here so want to get some community feedback. Has anyone seen this kind of thing before? Any advice? No status with DL or Garuda FYI.

kyushuman

Sounds like a great trip.
Do you have layover time in CGK from the CX ticket-- or just a transit-- did the schedule change affect your transit?
Or just having issues that you can't get to SYD because of the Garuda issues?

atsak

The schedule change was no problem; had a 9 hour layover sched change was only an hour. The issue is that they revoked the confirmed booking at Garuda for the CGK - SYD leg. It was confirmed, and now it's not. How can they do that?

atsak

Phew - they fixed it. Kudos to Delta for taking care of this for us. I was nervous there. Guess the old wisdom on this board of checking your bookings periodically paid off . . . can't imagine the heart attack if we arrived in Jakarta with 3/5ths of our party not having an onward booking to Sydney.

3Cforme

Was the Garuda schedule change one that eliminated your flight completely, or kept the same flight number at a different time?

atsak

Same flight 712, moved from 23 40 to 21 25. . .

3Cforme

I don't see the reasons for drama here. You were informed (by Garuda) of the schedule change. It was a Delta award ticket - of course it was Delta's responsibility to re-issue it.

emrdoc

It appears your original post was about 30 minutes too early...

strickerj

btonkid12345

Delta has problems with getting their award inventory to sync with their Asian partners - and I could easily see a slight schedule change causing a flight to be unconfirmed for some weird syncing between the system reasons (or one system trying to auto rebook because of another system's initial notification of a schedule change - maybe DL's system moving too fast and not waiting for the update times for Garuda, and thus losing the confirmed space)

It's most important that the OP was able to get the space back and that it wasn't removed/booked by someone else - I am sure, if someone persisted and spent time with DL, they could possibly eventually make it right - but I assume it would be much more difficult than re-confirming instantly confirmable space.

RealHJ

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Well, for other airlines it is. Having some Delta flights ticketed by another airline, every single time DL does one of the numerous arbitrary schedule changes like change departure by one minute, they reticket it. Delta still lists the old original ticket # on its PNR vs. the current ticket # (been reissued several times due to the several arbitrary and totally insignificant DL schedule changes of -3 min, +1 min, and so on), which may present a problem at time of flight as the ticket DL has for the PNR is no longer valid.

DL is addicted to schedule changes, so DL doesn't reticket it. Most other airlines are better managed and do it much less, and when schedule changes many probably require a reticket, as it is the SOP so elsewhere, after all.

strickerj

Wow, that’s weird. I guess I don’t fly partner airlines enough to have run into this.

yaychemistry

With many airlines a schedule change will invalidate the ticket. The ticket and reservation are different entities, and depending on and airline and how their backend IT works, if they don't match then the reservation is invalid. This can wreak all sorts of havoc until the ticketing airline reissues the ticket (which some phone agents may or may not know how to do).

I've been in a situation where I'm standing at the counter but the agent (who works for the operating airline) can't check me in on their system because a 5 minute schedule change made weeks ago means that the ticket (issued by a different airline as an award) doesn't match the reservation. The only way to solve the situation was to get on the phone (roaming charges anyone? thank goodness for Google Voice) with the ticketing airline to have them reissue the ticket (with multiple HUCA until I find someone who knows how to do a reissue of an award without having to make a new reservation).

So in a way, yes, this is SOP because that's just how the back end systems work (and maybe the insiders are used to things like this happening). On the other hand, they don't have to work that way and they definitely create a lot of stress for the flying public when things get out of sync.

atsak

From my perspective, the issue was I had a confirmed ticket and an email from the operating carrier stating as such. Then the ticket became unconfirmed and thus not guaranteed by a schedule change. If I had not called to fix it; it wouldn't have been fixed and we would have been in Jakarta in a few weeks with 3/5ths of the party stuck without perhaps space on a full flight. The potential for a fairly significant trip interruption was very high in this situation. For sure it might have worked out but . . .

This is a big deal to me because I built a lot of plans for a family of 5 around these flights. It's one thing when it's just me, that's fine, but when you've got a bunch of people to figure things out for it gets to be another thing.

I think I'd make a couple points:

1. Confirmed tickets stay confirmed because that's what that word means, otherwise they should say something else. Either it's confirmed or it isn't, and once it's confirmed, it doesn't become unconfirmed. Delta or Garuda should figure out how they don't screw that up with a schedule change which happens all the time. I have had many schedule changes on Star Alliance award tickets and never ran into this though they screw up IRROPS pretty well if they happen.
2. Another data point for everyone to check your bookings carefully when they've been made a long way out - so much easier to fix in advance than frantically at the airport . . .

nomiiiii

This is exactly true.

It has happened to me on BritishAirways-Alaska award flights (bought using one's mile on another), and on AirFrance-Aerolineas flight, and on AmericanAir-Etihad flights.

A schedule change invalidated the ticket, and my only clue that something is wrong happened when I tried to check in - and then I had to use my skype to call in to ask for a reissue.

Any time there is a schedule change or a flight-number change on a partner award flight, even if you can see your reservation / see your seats etc, call in the ticketing airline (the one who's award miles you used), to reconfirm if the ticket has been reissued after the schedule change.