Oct 21, 2022, 10:41 am
[prem fare gone]: QR: DPS-JFK $688 one way
Oct 21, 2022, 6:07 am
#751
Join Date: Oct 2011
Posts: 3,837
Plus, you never really know what can happen and how it can play out.
Oct 21, 2022, 6:24 am
#752
Join Date: Feb 2016
Location: YVR/LAX/PVG/TPE
Posts: 755
while it is true miracles do happen, but QR seems to have the least power in this. I am not sure if the station manager can do anything about a cancelled trip. Maybe to the manager, I cancelled it myself and just am looking for trouble. If it is within 2 days, sure maybe I can say I wanna check in, but still 4 days out I am not certain if that can be worth going into the airport after not sleeping for 70+hrs
Oct 21, 2022, 6:50 am
#753
Join Date: Oct 2011
Posts: 3,837
while it is true miracles do happen, but QR seems to have the least power in this. I am not sure if the station manager can do anything about a cancelled trip. Maybe to the manager, I cancelled it myself and just am looking for trouble. If it is within 2 days, sure maybe I can say I wanna check in, but still 4 days out I am not certain if that can be worth going into the airport after not sleeping for 70+hrs
Oct 21, 2022, 6:58 am
#754
Join Date: Feb 2016
Location: YVR/LAX/PVG/TPE
Posts: 755
Oct 21, 2022, 7:42 am
#756
Join Date: Feb 2003
Location: Atlanta, GA
Programs: DL 1MM Diamond, UA Silver, AA Gold, Marriott Titanium, IHG Spire, Hyatt Globalist
Posts: 594
Quick DP. Both QR and Amex sites still show my May 2023 booking as fully intact. B6 site is now showing "There was an error processing your request..." message when yesterday everything was intact.
Oct 21, 2022, 7:45 am
#757
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Aug 2017
Programs: AS 75K, DL Silver, UA Platinum, Hilton Gold, Hyatt Discoverist, Marriott Platinum + LT Gold
Posts: 10,446
Oct 21, 2022, 8:34 am
#759
Join Date: Aug 2022
Programs: Marriott Ambassador; Hyatt Globalist; UA Gold; Delta Gold; Alaska MVP Gold
Posts: 15
Another DP here.
On Amex Travel and QR app my trip is still showing confirmed, but I’m already getting a refund from B6 through the Amex plat card I used to pay for this trip. It’s the full amount, not $200 less.
Still haven’t got any email or communication from Amex or B6.
On Amex Travel and QR app my trip is still showing confirmed, but I’m already getting a refund from B6 through the Amex plat card I used to pay for this trip. It’s the full amount, not $200 less.
Still haven’t got any email or communication from Amex or B6.
Oct 21, 2022, 8:42 am
#760
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Aug 2014
Programs: Top Tier with all 3 alliances
Posts: 11,635
So, the moral of the story is that you have to fly the bargain fare within 48 hours max, if not 24 hours, if you go with the immediate approach, and if it fails, you are still at origin. The issue here was that the bargain fare was the return part...Hopefully you can enjoy the destination for a few days.
Oct 21, 2022, 9:51 am
#764
Join Date: Sep 2001
Programs: Alaska Tanzanite 100K
Posts: 3,857
Lots of things going on here, so I'll try to explain point by point.
FARE: The 'intern' joke is probably more real than you think. Pricing systems at the airlines are setup to do either a set fare, a percentage, or based on mileage. I think what happened here was someone not realizing what they were doing and loaded the wrong mileage charge or 'fare band' type, which is why it was SSOO cheap, and specific to just DPS departures (and not originating in US). Some fare rules and routing tables also require that codeshare sales include at least 1 flight by the operating carrier. So, someone on the B6 pricing team definitely filed this and put it out there and didn't test it. Why it took so long for them to remove it blows my mind - I've caught fares I filed incorrectly and had them suppressed within an hour. One erroneous fare required I zero out the fare bucket until we got it fixed. There *are* ways to deal with these fare errors. However, I believe that we now have some DOT rules regarding erroneous fares. Airlines have lost lots of very capable folks during and before COVID, and lots of us would use a GDS or TA to check our work (be it a fare filing, schedule change, etc) - seems that has been lost somewhere. (which is why I also own a travel agency with Sabre - we could check everything once it hits).
REFUNDS: If you do an automated refund (like online), you will get dinged $200. Because that's whats in the rule and the system is going to charge it. To get the full refund requires a human to process it and also enter a waiver code. Not sure if Jetblue/Qatar is sending out a mass waiver code for those or if its done case-by-case. But you should get the full amount, NOT less the $200 voluntary refund fee.
CONFIRMED/UNCONFIRMED: Because of the nature of codeshares, sometimes things slip thru the cracks. When you book a B6 flight operated by QR, you have 2 "flights". You have the LIVE flight, which is on the QR system, and then the B6 codeshare, which resides on B6 Sabre. The two are only intertwined by the link. If the B6 flight cancels, sometimes the QR side doesn't get updated. Add in a travel agent, which uses Amadeus/Sabre/Worldspan/Galileo, and now you have a THIRD flight residing on that host. Sometimes the communication doesn't always get to all 3 systems. Also the TA can "refresh" the booking or try to rebook it and reactivate the other flights. But we get a lot of dead legs on the airline side because of the codeshare flight mapping - in this case, there's a chance that the operating carrier (QR) may not ever cancel their own space, even though B6 does it. The TA system has you booked on QR but as a B6, so the communication stream goes GDS -> B6 Sabre -> QR system (forgot which one they are on).... UNLESS It was booked as a QR flight, then its TA GDS -> QR. Traditional GDS systems only keep a PNR (reservation) "live" for 3 days after everything was cancelled, which is probably why many of you still show a confirmed segment in the system.... your reservation is probably still being worked on, or cancelled. Travel Agents have ways to keep it "live" on their end, even if is dead/removed on the airline side. But just because you are holding space on a flight doesn't mean you have a VALID e-ticket to get on.
TICKETING: So, here's where everyone's getting different stories. If you are plated on QR (157) or Jetblue (279), how this was handled is night and day. That's because whoever plated (took your money and issued the ticket) has control of your money. This has *nothing* to do with the reservation. You can have a "confirmed seat" without a ticket. And you can have a ticket without a confirmed seat. The PSS (Passenger Service System) is what links the two. If one of those elements is missing or invalid, it can cancel your air space. Normally it doesn't go the other way. LOCATION OF WHERE IT WAS TICKETED has the prevailing rules/laws of that country. Example: Some online agencies in Europe are now ticketing in GREECE versus Germany/Spain/UK. I'm still baffled by this one, but one airline I was doing consulting work for, we had a large number of tickets issued in GREECE despite the fact we weren't a member of the Greece BSP or anything - they were ticketing on HR or APG. Maybe they had a better currency conversion? If your ticket was ISSUED in the US, then US DOT laws apply to that ticket (reference: Air Canada & covid).
you MUST have a valid ticket (status: OPEN) in order to fly. But you do NOT need a confirmed reservation (seats held) to fly, an agent can re-add that.
How did Jetblue find out about this?
For starters, it wasn't by calling reservations. We need to NIP that 'troll' right in the bud. Most res agents don't even know who to contact or how to contact/report these types of issues, and if they do, it will fall into an 'inbox' or pile of other stuff on their supervisors desks.
If this was sold as a B6 codeshare, then the B6 sales BI (business intelligence) system would pick it up and notice a BUNCH of DPS -XXX sales. They might see 2 or 3 a day. But 100 or more will raise a red flag and an analyst would get an alert in his/her email box the next morning. If it was sold as a QR/QR, it might not have even been noticed by the BI systems. For ticketing, this is a bit delayed due to ARC and BSP (clearinghouse) reporting. Sadly this is the part of the airline & travel industry that is lagging. It may take a few days, but the same type of BI reporting may start to see a huge spike in a particular routing or fare basis code - but definitely not instant. Doesn't matter which stock or where it was sold, the airline data isn't received or analyzed for a few days until AFTER the fact. ATPCO (fare filing system) is getting more and more automated, so that's why JetBlue probably didn't notice it or even realize the fare that was filed.
Which probably explains why some of you got refunds already, and some of you haven't. They just haven't come across your tickets yet. QR may not want to have to sift thru ALL its data to find these erroneous fares, so that's probably why/how some of you are still showing everything intact - QR booked and QR ticketed vs touching a B6 component (except for fare).
FARE: The 'intern' joke is probably more real than you think. Pricing systems at the airlines are setup to do either a set fare, a percentage, or based on mileage. I think what happened here was someone not realizing what they were doing and loaded the wrong mileage charge or 'fare band' type, which is why it was SSOO cheap, and specific to just DPS departures (and not originating in US). Some fare rules and routing tables also require that codeshare sales include at least 1 flight by the operating carrier. So, someone on the B6 pricing team definitely filed this and put it out there and didn't test it. Why it took so long for them to remove it blows my mind - I've caught fares I filed incorrectly and had them suppressed within an hour. One erroneous fare required I zero out the fare bucket until we got it fixed. There *are* ways to deal with these fare errors. However, I believe that we now have some DOT rules regarding erroneous fares. Airlines have lost lots of very capable folks during and before COVID, and lots of us would use a GDS or TA to check our work (be it a fare filing, schedule change, etc) - seems that has been lost somewhere. (which is why I also own a travel agency with Sabre - we could check everything once it hits).
REFUNDS: If you do an automated refund (like online), you will get dinged $200. Because that's whats in the rule and the system is going to charge it. To get the full refund requires a human to process it and also enter a waiver code. Not sure if Jetblue/Qatar is sending out a mass waiver code for those or if its done case-by-case. But you should get the full amount, NOT less the $200 voluntary refund fee.
CONFIRMED/UNCONFIRMED: Because of the nature of codeshares, sometimes things slip thru the cracks. When you book a B6 flight operated by QR, you have 2 "flights". You have the LIVE flight, which is on the QR system, and then the B6 codeshare, which resides on B6 Sabre. The two are only intertwined by the link. If the B6 flight cancels, sometimes the QR side doesn't get updated. Add in a travel agent, which uses Amadeus/Sabre/Worldspan/Galileo, and now you have a THIRD flight residing on that host. Sometimes the communication doesn't always get to all 3 systems. Also the TA can "refresh" the booking or try to rebook it and reactivate the other flights. But we get a lot of dead legs on the airline side because of the codeshare flight mapping - in this case, there's a chance that the operating carrier (QR) may not ever cancel their own space, even though B6 does it. The TA system has you booked on QR but as a B6, so the communication stream goes GDS -> B6 Sabre -> QR system (forgot which one they are on).... UNLESS It was booked as a QR flight, then its TA GDS -> QR. Traditional GDS systems only keep a PNR (reservation) "live" for 3 days after everything was cancelled, which is probably why many of you still show a confirmed segment in the system.... your reservation is probably still being worked on, or cancelled. Travel Agents have ways to keep it "live" on their end, even if is dead/removed on the airline side. But just because you are holding space on a flight doesn't mean you have a VALID e-ticket to get on.
TICKETING: So, here's where everyone's getting different stories. If you are plated on QR (157) or Jetblue (279), how this was handled is night and day. That's because whoever plated (took your money and issued the ticket) has control of your money. This has *nothing* to do with the reservation. You can have a "confirmed seat" without a ticket. And you can have a ticket without a confirmed seat. The PSS (Passenger Service System) is what links the two. If one of those elements is missing or invalid, it can cancel your air space. Normally it doesn't go the other way. LOCATION OF WHERE IT WAS TICKETED has the prevailing rules/laws of that country. Example: Some online agencies in Europe are now ticketing in GREECE versus Germany/Spain/UK. I'm still baffled by this one, but one airline I was doing consulting work for, we had a large number of tickets issued in GREECE despite the fact we weren't a member of the Greece BSP or anything - they were ticketing on HR or APG. Maybe they had a better currency conversion? If your ticket was ISSUED in the US, then US DOT laws apply to that ticket (reference: Air Canada & covid).
you MUST have a valid ticket (status: OPEN) in order to fly. But you do NOT need a confirmed reservation (seats held) to fly, an agent can re-add that.
How did Jetblue find out about this?
For starters, it wasn't by calling reservations. We need to NIP that 'troll' right in the bud. Most res agents don't even know who to contact or how to contact/report these types of issues, and if they do, it will fall into an 'inbox' or pile of other stuff on their supervisors desks.
If this was sold as a B6 codeshare, then the B6 sales BI (business intelligence) system would pick it up and notice a BUNCH of DPS -XXX sales. They might see 2 or 3 a day. But 100 or more will raise a red flag and an analyst would get an alert in his/her email box the next morning. If it was sold as a QR/QR, it might not have even been noticed by the BI systems. For ticketing, this is a bit delayed due to ARC and BSP (clearinghouse) reporting. Sadly this is the part of the airline & travel industry that is lagging. It may take a few days, but the same type of BI reporting may start to see a huge spike in a particular routing or fare basis code - but definitely not instant. Doesn't matter which stock or where it was sold, the airline data isn't received or analyzed for a few days until AFTER the fact. ATPCO (fare filing system) is getting more and more automated, so that's why JetBlue probably didn't notice it or even realize the fare that was filed.
Which probably explains why some of you got refunds already, and some of you haven't. They just haven't come across your tickets yet. QR may not want to have to sift thru ALL its data to find these erroneous fares, so that's probably why/how some of you are still showing everything intact - QR booked and QR ticketed vs touching a B6 component (except for fare).
Last edited by UAPremierExec; Oct 21, 2022 at 11:27 am
Oct 21, 2022, 9:57 am
#765
Join Date: Dec 2008
Location: DUB-BOS
Programs: various
Posts: 3,677
