Two or three years ago I was booking flights for a friend and I. I can't remember which website I was using. After filling the flyer information, I used the "autofill" function to fill in my name for the credit card info on the same screen.

This changed her name to my name so I had two flight booked under my name. I caught my mistake when I received the confirmation email. I called the airline (or hotwire or whoever) and they corrected the name with no problem or extra fee. ^

In this case I rather agree that the passenger bears responsibility.

I think reasonable procedures to account for errors are:
* 24 hour no penalty cancellation, as many US airlines offer
* After that, a change fee -- at least up until the initial flight departs

Personally, I'd like for tickets to retain value, minus change fee, if unused after date of departure. But I don't feel strongly about this.

Mistakes do happen. I made one this past week on an AA booking myself, return the day AFTER I had intended to purchase for. Called AA about an hour later (they take awhile to issue tickets, so email confirmations don't come instantly), and they made the change with no penalty. ^

Now, if you booked through an engine that promises a flight reminder email and that email didn't come, you might have recourse through that agency for their technical failure if that failure caused you to lose all value in your ticket.

But in this case it sounds like everything worked perfectly except for entering the wrong travel dates.

Some websites are better than others, e.g. I often find united.com glitchy in that dates I'm searching may or may not hold when I edit parameters of my search, they sometimes do and other times default back to the original date on the form. I could easily book the wrong date...

Either way, that's why I think 24 hours is fair. (Although United really should fix its website. Hah!.)

But a few weeks after booking I think you're pretty much at the mercy of the airline.

Can you elaborate how the airlines/systems are at fault when customers book the wrong dates themselves? :confused:[/QUOTE]

Poor online interfaces. Bad web design.

Just for the record, I never said or implied that I was due anything from FL. It may certainly have been my error, but as I said, I am typically VERY conscious of all the details of my bookings. The multiple open windows and scroll wheel theories are interesting, and could explain my situation. Clearly where I DEFINITELY screwed up was not checking the confirmation email right away.

I simply wanted to know if anyone else had experienced anything similar and what, if any, good resolutions any FT'ers experienced.

I am really amazed at the huge debate this has developed into. ;)

Looks like we're back to the old adage:
Regardless: Sometimes there are bugs. Sometimes people are careless. The airline, or even the airline's personnel can't know what dates you actually wanted. Even if the site screws up, it's still on the user to verify the data.

As to how... bugs, bad web design, many, many ways. Hit this once on a car rental site. Turned out if you went to modify your reservation, there was some bug that changed the date even if you didn't go to the date field. As I was updating my credit card #, I never rechecked the date. Was really surprised when I showed up to pick up the car and didn't have a reservation. They were able to get me a car at the same rate, so no harm done. I was able to figure out the issue (it was a bug) and they fixed it shortly thereafter.

I believe the discussion has been expanded from human errors to faulty (or not ;)) system/application in making reservations later on in the thread, which is not directed toward you and could be a bit OT to your OP.

Please don't take it too personally. As any seasoned FTer knows, any discussion on FT has the potential to grow "bigger" or get side-tracked in any minute.

:D

UPDATE: Well played, FL. Well played.
 

Got my answer today. What was already becoming my favorite airline out of MKE (low pricing, readily available upgrades, routes to most of my business destinations) cemented their status in my book.

My email to FL:

Hello, I have a bit of a dilemma. I booked the flights with the confirmation codes listed above a few weeks ago for business. I was booking for November 15, returning November 16. I did not check the confirmation emails after booking. When I logged onto my A+ account 2 days ago, I noticed these flights in my past trips as November 1 and 2. While there is a possibility I made an error and I did not check the confirmation emails, I am VERY careful to check all details of my bookings before purchasing. I was sure I booked on Nov. 15 and 16. I was wondering if you could have your IT Dept. look at my booking and see if by chance there was some kind of website glitch when I booked that defaulted the dates to Nov. 1 and 2. In the meantime, I did book the proper flights again for Nov. 15/16. I am hoping I can get a refund or some kind of credit for these flights since I did not take them and had no idea the dates were wrong. Thank you, FLYINBELLS.

FL response:

Dear Mr. FLYINBELLS,

All AirTran Airways fares are non-refundable (except Business Class) and a $75.00 fee per person applies to any change made after purchase plus any applicable increase in airfare. Failure to cancel a reservation one hour prior to departure may result in forfeiture of airfare. As a gesture of good will, I have waived the cancellation fee under record XXXXXX and XXXXXX. You now have a credit of $XXX.XX that is valid until October 29, 2010 and may be redeemed online by accessing your A+ Rewards account.

Should you need any further assistance, please do not hesitate to contact us again. We thank you for including AirTran Airways in your travel plans and we look forward to serving you on a future flight.

Sincerely,

XXXXX XXXXXX
Customer Relations Department
AirTran Airways

Something I do: So long as there is any potential ongoing issue I keep any such e-mails around. Thus I always keep all e-mails pertaining to a flight until after the trip is done etc.

Except that you won't, because any agency with half a clue will have disclaimers in their terms & conditions that any e-mail reminder service is offered as a courtesy only and they cannot guarantee that the e-mail will be sent on time, or if sent, will arrive on time, due to any number of potential problems with either their systems, your systems, your ISP's systems, of any of the systems in between.

E-mail is not a great idea for anything time-sensitive.

aa.com does not show the flight info on the final confirmation screen, or even on the one prior. It's a pet peeve of mine.

Southwest is another airline that doesn't show the flight information when you make the final click.

I once made a mistake on Alaska. They allowed a change to the correct date but made me fly a less than direct route, which was an acceptable demand.

Great customer service on the part of FL, FLYINBELLS.

I, for one, always check my confirmations because I manually enter the flight info into my Lotus Notes calendar based on the confirmation email (or, if work-related, my admin does it). This is a quick and easy way to ensure the info is correct every time.

^ glad it worked out for you OP. And good job FL, I assume OP is an A+ Elite, with a history of flights out of MKE, and they kept a good customer happy, even when they didn't need to, since it was really OPs responsibility.

I agree wholeheartedly, gobluetwo. I was wondering if anyone else was even going to acknowledge this. I was very pleasantly surprised at their response, as I expected the canned answer of the first couple lines, but not the resulting refund.

that was my thought as well!