moondog

What information do you suppose LOT staff might have had access to in order to make such a determination?

zkzkz

I don't even know what "marked as fraud" could mean. If Aeroplan thought it was fraud they would have canceled the ticket. I don't think there's any "mark" they could put on a reservation or ticket that another airline would see.

I think what happened is the LOT agents didn't understand how to validate the ticket. I had a problem once on Turkish on a UA issued award ticket where the checkin agent just couldn't figure out what to do. He had to call over a supervisor who was able to fix it in a few keystrokes and then he checked me in no problem. I've also had UA be unable to check me in on an AC issued (revenue) ticket because something was disconnected between the ticket and the reservation. Luckily I was at an airport with AC staff but they had to call their help desk to revalidate the ticket.

Something similar was wrong with your reservation -- probably something more like the Turkish case where they should have been able to fix it but they just didn't know how so they made up some story to explain the problem.

ny110010001

Based on what I was told and over heard of others who were also denied boarding, it was only award redemptions that was singled out. The local crew just don’t accept award redemptions. The way it seemed to me is that this is solely decided by the local crew and not LOT Polish, the company. Nonetheless, the local crew represents LOT Polish and ultimately LOT Polish should be held responsible for their agents actions.

ny110010001

Thanks for telling your experience. Based on what you described, it seems that there was an innocent confusion and the local agent tried to help. Happy to hear your situation was resolved timely. This is not the case for me. The local crew not only won’t help, they claim my ticket is purchased fraudulently and their tone was unprofessional to say the best. The reason they gave me makes no sense. After posting this, I was contacted by others who had the same experience. All reward redemptions. Seems like this is a systemic issue created by the local crew. I wasn’t singled out but the experience was painful nonetheless.

hugolover

People PM’d you to say they had issues with Aeroplan issued LO ex-PEK?

Is that with origin only PEK or also those flying a return/ further segments?

ny110010001

I received messages from people. I don’t know if they all booked through Areoplan but they experienced the same issue at PEK. No one at PEK hinted it was Aeroplan redemptions but award redemptions in general.

on a related note, you asked about 3C on OS92. Can you share some details? Did you hear something about 3C? Kind enough to share?

ny110010001

Thank you very much! This is very helpful!

vennichael

sorry for the whole drama, ny.
this is ridiculous...local crew in PEK refused a lot (all?) award redemption tickets to board....

cookiemonster23

Same thing happened to my mom two weeks ago. I booked her an award ticket on a LOT Polish business class flight from PEK to WAW then connecting WAW to ORD. I booked using Avianca LifeMiles. She was denied a boarding pass at the airport by airport check-in staff. It was apparently the "Beijing office" that would not honor the ticket. I called both LOT Polish and Avianca customer service and both said the tickets looked normal on their end. I am completely baffled how this could happen. Is some local manager going rogue and unilaterally deciding not to honor award tickets? There were apparently 4 other people who were also denied boarding on the same flight. I had to book my mom a same-day ticket on United for ~$2k - not happy about it at all. Avianca is refusing to give me the miles back without a $200 reinstatement fee. I'm frustrated and angry and don't know what recourse I have.

Siu

Hi! I'm in the exact same situation. I booked a ticket for PEK - WAW - JFK with Lifemiles for my mom departing tomorrow, but received an email yesterday from a LOT representative in their Beijing office saying she would be denied boarding. Did you email Lifemiles or just give them a call? I tried to explain the entire thing to the agent in Lifemiles but they didn't understand why this could happen, and LOT side said they would only talk to Avianca, not me. Already had a plan B but feeling so frastruated trying to reach both sides and get an answer.

corporate-wage-slave

I don't think it's a secret that there is a redemption traffic scam going on in China and North Korea. I'm more familiar with it on the Avios side, where key-logging and phishing techniques are used to steal redemption miles, then transfer them to tickets on other airlines. There are sold by fake travel agents to unsuspecting travellers. An airline like LOT only finds out the problem when it goes to the redemption internal banking process to get payment for flights rendered, only to discover that they are left out of pocket, the miles were cancelled sometime previously, when the real air miles owner worked out what was going on. I can imagine enough of this is going on that the ground handler for LOT in PEK has just decided to block redemption transactions not involving M&M. I find it odd, though, that this is affecting multiple bookings on a given flight.

This will stop if enough genuine travellers take LOT through the process of claiming IDB compensation (typically 600€ per passenger) and rebooking costs for replacement flights. In most of Europe, Israel, Turkey, some parts of Canada, some USA states, there are Small Claims channels to the court system, and / or an arbitration process and/or an Enforcement Body. For flights involving USA travel there is also access to DOT's complaint system, a very effective Enforcement Body. But it's important for those affected to use the tools at their disposition to recover their full costs from LOT, ideally, or failing that Avianca / Aeroplan. The three cases above don't give enough background information to advise more precisely.

moondog

In spite of the fact that the OP's tone is a little too whiney for my tastes, I admire his diligence and conviction (in spades). This honestly might be a rare "greater good" unicorn.

ny110010001

Hi vennichael. Seems there are others who shared similar experiences (see the more recent posts in this thread). So things are suggesting local crew going rogue and went against company and Star Alliance policy.

ny110010001

Having experienced something similar, I feel for you. You called them, did you record the call noting that both LOT Polish and Avianca customer service said the tickets looked normal on their end? Besides reaching out to Avianca, what other action have you taken so far? What do you plan to do next?

ny110010001

Haha moondog, while I understand your reaction, you need to be there to fully understand and appreciate what I (and others in similar situations) was going through. How would you feel if you are not at fault and have to pay thousands of USD to find an alternative flight home? I wouldn't wish that on you.

I share my story for two reasons: (1) to get feedback on what others had experienced and how they resolved it; and (2) provide a warning on redeeming LOT Polish flights departing from PEK.