burmaflyer

So I was booked on an F award ticket from RGN to TXL (RGN-BKK-MUC-TXL, the BKK-MUC segment being F, all else C), and the RGN-BKK flight was cancelled (TG306, 21 Sep) for mechanical reasons. Spent an hour with TG at airport to rebook, then an hour with their call center from hotel. After another hour on the phone with local office this morning, they told me to rush to airport for morning flight. Got there and they couldn't find a seat. Now am heading into BKK, but they can't find seats for BKK-TXL (via FRA, MUC or anywhere) because they are only looking for award availability. Given that this was their cancellation, shouldn't they be looking across all booking classes? They are selling F seats BKK-FRA for the flight...

Just spent another hour on the phone with their BKK call center who said the best they can do is waitlist me and to try at airport office. All seems pretty lackluster in terms of customer service. Does anybody have useful experience on whom to direct this to?

And given that I've had a day delay, plus x hours on the phone, plus who knows when I will actually get home, any chance of compensation -- given that this was an award ticket (and booked using M&M miles?)?

Thanks as always for any advice.

Nik

BinSabai

regarding compensation: it usually does not matter whether you are on a paid ticket or award.
However as there is no law or any regulation in Asia (like for example in the EU) and compensations are hardly enforced at any court, you depend entirely on the goodwill of the airline

burmaflyer

Thanks... yes, based on TG customer service so far, I'm guessing any request for compensation will go unanswered...

thbe

If I were you, I would make a complain at M&M as well, Not because of EU passenger rights, but because you spent a bunch of miles and M&M partner TG screwed it up. Actually I would call my LH hotline to ask for support. Don't know, if that helps and also don't know, if that works with UA as well.

BinSabai

depending on where he get the award ticket from…
OP states he is UA1k, so probably he got award ticket through UA...

brunos

OP states M&M awatd, so it is likely to be LH. That would be good, because they could open seats on their LH flights.
TG could make an effort to open a seat to FRA, MUC or elsewhere in Europe, but there is little they can do regarding the FRA-TXL.
OP is not entitled to EC261 compensation, but a goodwill gesture from TG is likely but probably in the form of miles to their own FFP.

warakorn

This is really a shame.
In an irrops situation TG should be able to write in a special waiver code during the ticket reissue process.
Award availability should'nt matter then. Fare class available (even on a paid ticket) shouldn't matter at all during irrops.

SK AAR

This is very often the issue with IRROPS on award tickets. The operating carrier will not be able to/will refuse to book into revenue class and will insist that X,I or O class is available, in particular if other carriers are included in the rebooked flights. Phone agents definitely can't do this. It needs to dealt with by airport ticketing staff who are more flexible/know how to do it. Some years ago it was practice to issue a FIM which would enable to rebook into any available revenue class, but my understanding is that now carriers are very reluctant to do so and prefer just to rebook the ticket (which for reward tickets require award availability to be available).

Creole Spirit

I owouldn't be that negative - they will answer
But you may and should also contact Thai's Customer Relations Department in Germany

burmaflyer

Thanks everyone for the helpful replies. Made it back to Germany in the end -- SK AAR was right: call center staff were unable to be of help, but airport ticketing staff in Bangkok eventually managed to sort it out. Was definitely not a first class experience in terms of customer support, but I made it home. Yes, tickets were booked using M&M and talked with their SEN hotline during the whole rebooking debacle, but they weren't able to do anything since it was a TG ops issue. All in all not great -- my first time encountering irregular ops during award travel, so will chalk it up to experience.

Kacee

LH can absolutely change their own ticket, but would have been limited to rebooking you in open award space. TG should have been willing to open space on its own metal BKK to anywhere in Europe to connect to TXL. At the airport is definitely the best place to deal with this. I wouldn't have left the TG counter at BKK without having this resolved.

SK AAR

Okay, thank you for updating us. Rather than insisting that TG rebooked the last segment with LH to TXL (which seemed to be the time consuming and complex part for the TG staff) the OP could have asked TG to rebook the TG legs only (to FRA or MUC) and then call SEN line or approach LH staff/ticketing desk upon arrival to get LH to rebook the TXL flight. I believe this would have been far easier to achieve rather than insisting that TG did the complete rebooking (I'm aware that this involves uncertainty about reaching TXL and also collecting the bags for recheck-in with LH at FRA/MUC - but many may prefer this rather than the frustrating and time consuming experience getting a carrier to rebook legs of other carriers).

burmaflyer

Thanks, but to be clear: that wasn't the issue. The issue was that TG couldn't find space (on their metal or other airlines) out of BKK to Europe, because they were looking only at award availability. Once they moved beyond that, they were able to find a seat on flight to FRA. FRA to TXL was no issue.

SK AAR

Okay. So you needed TG BKK airport staff to look beyond award availability and authorise rebooking into revenue class on the TG flight to FRA. If correct this is much in line with my experience (not restricted to TG though) that you need airport staff to do the rebooking if you are looking for solutions involving rebooking OAL/to other carriers or from reward class into revenue class (the latter seems to be particularly difficult)

Kacee

UA phone agents will open revenue space on UA metal as a matter of course. It requires supervisor approval, but that is routinely granted.