Example of CX restricting access based on Point of Sale
 

I have a further a clear example of CX restricting access based on Point of Sale. I have ex-MRU AONE4. One sector HKG-ICN has been waitlisted for over a month. Expertflier shows D9 (2 class sector) on all flights. When I call BA (LON or MRU) or CX (LON) they say no availability on any flight in any class on the day in question. When I call making a general enquiry they confirm there is plenty of availibility on the flight I want and all theother flights and I can make a dummy booking on Cathay Pacific's website.

After posting on this before and more research I am betting that Amadeus is resticting access based on the Point of Sale (POS) for this sector on this day for some reason. Why ? So when the agent looks at my reservation the POS filter is applied and the agent genuinely sees no availaibilty to re-book me. Does that seem like a resonable deduction that fits all the facts ?

What can I do, to get this changed.
Will the waitlist ever clear, I don't see how it ever will and need to know soon. ?
When I start the RTW this week will the POS indicator move as I go on my RTW or will the availibilty I can see change somehow.
I guess I need CX to sort this out ? How do I explain this to a CX aqent so they can help me, would someone in CX reservations have the authorisation to change my booking access privileges. Should it be a call to HKG or would LON based agents help.


Any suggestion most welcome.

Ticket the segment open-dated then just call CX direct for a reservation and give them the ticket number.

The way I read Dermot's post he's already done that and been told "no dice."

Already ticketed with the waitlist request for 11th June flight. I protected the itinerary from collapsing by having a confirmed seat on the following day (12th) but this is not what I want to happen. The availability is bizzare full availibity on all dates either side of the 11th and no seats at all on 5 wide bodied aircraft to ICN in any class. That must to over 1000 seat capacity on that day.

Using the ticket number would that just route the agent back to my CA PNR, or am i missing something subtle.

If it's an entirely separate reservation made through CX HK then I'm sure there wouldn't be a problem. A OWE can be twenty separate PNRs if that's what it takes to get the flights (most of mine have had 4 or 5 PNRs associated with them during their lifetime).

I would never ticket a waitlist - I'd ticket an open segment (in A not D - never get an AONEx coupon issued in D if there is ever A on that segment, it's a bugger to get into A if the coupon says D) and then make a separate reservation. I see that CX410 is 3 class that day, so I'd be pushing for A on that (even though it is showing F4A0 at the moment in EF).

Not sure if it's the same on CX, but I had a similar situation with BA. The ex-SIN inventory for SIN-LHR was D0 for both BA 12 and BA16 but they were in fact wide open if viewing ex-UK inventory (EF and AA's systems are only able to view inventory from an exSIN perspective apparently). I confirmed myself onto a flight that was available (can't WL in D with BA), called up BA UK with the Amadeus record locator and got them to replace the confirmed flight with the one I actually wanted. Now whether the BA agent bent some rule in intervening in my as yet unticketed AA-organised itinerary is another story...:eek:

Airlines ( at the least the more advanced ones) have long restricted availablity by POS, so this no suprise or secret. MRU POS RTW fares are lower than many, so it's not unexpected your running into inventory availablity issues. POS of sale inventory limits are based on the expected revenue from that POS, so if the POS has lower fares, expect lower availability.

Also, to be clear, it's the individual airline (Not Amadeus, or any of the GDSs that determaine POS of sale limits for each segment). The carrier is betting it can get better revenue on the segmnet in question from another passenger, so has closed down the inventory for your POS. Availiblity in Amadeus is simply what CX is telling them to show available. Also, when you call CX direclty, they are not looking at Amadeus to see availablity. They are looking at theire own CRS that they internally maintain.

POS is a fact of life when flying..especially on discounted Alliance products. Your option is to pay a higher fare or wait until the available dates..unless you can convince somone to overide the availiblity..wish I would rate as a slim chance. Inventory can open up closer to depature, but I wouldn't count on that either given the loads expected this summer.

The OP comments that CX shows full availability for ALL days before his wanted date and full availability for ALL days after that day, and on that particular day no availability whatsoever on any of the many flights scheduled from, of all places, HKG to ICN.

Now, what's the segment HKG-ICN got to do with the ticket being a 'cheap' RTW ex MRU?, and why would CX zero out availability on one day out of months?. I'm no expert on this stuff but this particular case does not look to me like anything at all like restricted availablity by POS.

It would be nice to understand enough about POS availability to be able to game it.

OP mentioned that a general inquiry for availability returned seats, but when his PNR was brought up the availability disappeared. Have others seen that behavior?

If so, it at least used to be trivial to create snippet PNR's that cover a piece of an rtw not including the starting point, with a down-trip carrier. Just call the carrier, tell them you're going to add a couple of segments to an existing xONE (that they didn't issue) and ask for a res for the seats pending reissue. Call them back with the ticket numbers a week later.

Others have posted that seats are available or not depending on which res location you call. If those postings were real POS issues (and not simply that the first res agent and/or the technology at that location were lame) the work-around is simply a long-distance phone call to the right res office. A sticky list would be in order.

The following info may or may not be useful. Also remember that each airline implements it differently, and there is a difference between their own res system and the GDS's like Amadeus. There seem to be 3 kinds of POS:

1. ticket POS (associated with the original ticket number).
2. reissue POS (associated with the reissued ticket number).
3. computer terminal "POS" (associated with the network address of the computer making the inquiry).

At various times one of these 3 seem to be used, and it varies by airline and transaction. I suspect the intent is to always use 1 for ticketing, and 3 for anonymous inquiries (look at how all the airline web sites are now starting to require identifying country of origin prior to giving quotes). The use of 2 might be a technology issue, a limitation of the system. But it does create an arbitrage opportunity, by doing a re-issue at a high-cost location (e.g. UK or US). But the preparations for 100% e-ticketing are also causing these systems to be updated, so the airline differences might be ending this year.

Lots of airlines zero out discount inventory on specific days of the week or on flights by time of day. For example QF has some flights that have no A or D inventory on Fridays (but wide open for other dates), and AA has flights with no D during morning/afternoon rush, but open during mid-day. The idea is the same as for discounted Y fare codes: the cheaper fares are funneled to the less desirable flights, leaving premium seats empty for sale at a higher fare. The POS wrinkle allows distinguishing the same fare code into a lower priced fare code, and making seats available only for higher fares. Whether this practice is well implmented is a different issue. I suppose the ultimate implementation would be to assign a dollar value to the sector, and bid for the seats based on the dollar cost of the ticket. At that point Y tickets with upgrades will beat out some of the D fares!

I understand that, but have you ever seen an airline zero out discount inventory for, say, Friday the 14th of September, 2007 and only for that day, out of a full year,...because they want to restrict access based on POS? and further... have you ever seen it done to restrict, say, an exMRU sale of a... HKG-ICN flight? It just doesn't add up.

You're right, "no seats on Wednesday" is general revenue management.

If there's any sense to this, POS has to funnel *sale* of segments to persons buying at a high-priced place, so a person attempting to buy from a low-priced place won't see availability.

Once the ticket is sold, there's presumably little reason for the airline to care about subsequent reservation changes because for point to point tickets the passenger must have paid the higher fare to have gotten the ticket in the first place - open-booking from a place where the seat wasn't available being presumably microscopically rare.

That leaves multisegment trips. Would the airlines have bothered to add that to the programmer's specification? Seems unlikely anyone would have thought of it, or paid extra for it. (Programmers, on staff or on contract, do NOTHING for cheap).

But if they did, no xONE issued anywhere would ever be allowed to fly a POS-controlled seat (until the restriction was lifted). The per-segment revenue gleaned from an xONE ticket is not knowable until the trip is completed, and even booked from a high-priced point is likely to be pathetically small compared to any point-to-point A/D ticket.

So I think we have to be careful blaming availability on POS - it probably fogs the real issues.

That's my point; no doubt availability on POS exists, but IMO it is not a factor in this case.

I except it may not be a POS issue but I have described the facts accurately.
I am planning to contact CX in London again tomorrow to try and secure a confirmed reservation for the date I want with a strategy worked out by fellow list member. I will report back later.