SFO777

Just booked 2 F seats into an F8 cabin on the late 01SEP ORD-FRA 744 at T-14.5 on Aeroplan.com. It would have taken another two days to show up on .bomb.

NA-Flyer

Nice to hear that SFO777. We should expect another great trip report from you soon @:-)

jasonvr

Snagged 2xF seats on FRA-DEN at T-11. Had to call from Zambia using Vonage Extensions (agent couldn't hear me over Skype).

However, got put on hold for 30 minutes while it went to the rate desk. Amazingly, the connection didn't drop, but I did feed the agent all the info she would need in case we got disconnected before it finished (CC num, CVV, PIN, etc) and gave her auth to finish the transaction if the call dropped (she had already snagged the space).

I got 4 emails from UA with two different receipts. Agent said taxes went up significantly, but it looks like the rate desk REALLY messed up. Original connection was thru LHR, so I had UK taxes. No UK in my itinerary any more but there are still UK taxes on the receipts. One set of receipts also has a YR charge on it (International Surcharge) which shouldn't show up at all on award tickets.

Also, receipt is now showing the miles coming from my account, not my wife's like it was originally, however, as of yet, no change in mileage in either account (should have been extra miles taken out from her account as we changed from a J award to an F award).

I'll have to deal with all of this when I get back from Africa (too much of a pain to deal with from here).

cyborg

Apologies for the long post, hope the details will be usefull to those who try to book LH First when experiencing phantom availability.

I had an award booked on united.com with 3 segments UA-First/TG-First/TG-Business. I was interested in changing the 1st segment to LH once the T-14 window opened up. At T-14 the LH flight showed available in First on united.com, but when I called the 1K desk it wasn't available. Repeated this for the next 3 days even speaking to the Internet Desk who acknowledged there was a problem if I could see it and they could not. Today I tried the change flight option on united.com and saw the LH flight in First with my TG flights in First/Business, just like the current booking. I was reluctant to make the online change since the mixed cabin icon displayed the 3rd segment in TG-Business (correctly), but didn't display the 1st or 2nd segments at all (spooky). I called the 1K desk and requested transfer to the Internet Desk to assist as I went through the process of changing to LH/TG/TG to ensure I didn't lose the first class seats on the 1st two segments.

It worked! Took a bit of follow-on effort to contact LH and TG to re-establish seat assignments and other record data, but the process resulted in the exact booking I wanted in spite of the inability of the 1K desk to perform the transaction (10 calls over the last few days).

Apparently, united.com has the ability to book LH first seats when the 1K desk cannot see availability if it is done through the change flight option.

Has anyone else experienced this?

Cheers,

-Cyborg

OptionsCLE

Yes, I've run into examples where UA agents can't see inventory which can be booked online, but in my experience that's rare. I've only been able to successfully book seats like this when KVS/ANA also shows the seat available. Just today I had to book KUL-FRA (one segment with a stop in BKK) online because the agent couldn't see it, but she couldn't find the flight at all (mileage seats or not) so I think that had more to do with the fact that it was a through-segment.

avi8tir

guys, just fyi, I am experiencing phantom availability within the T-14 window...

happened to me twice in the last 24 hours as I am trying to tweak my final plans for my honeymoon. Appears on UA.com & EF but the agent cant see it.

Just letting you know!

goodeats21

Seeing the same thing...phantom within 14 days.

Kacee

EF scrapes UA so the errors will be same. This is why people use ANA or KVS.

5khours

Got the error message last night. Woke up this morning and the flight was booked and ticketed. Weird !

avi8tir

what flight did you book? maybe it was mine! haha.

Frederik123

Just got two FRA-NRT flights in F ticketed. Since the flight was booked within T-14 window, I was afraid that it was another phanton award - glad it worked out

5khours

Honestly, don't think the phantom ticket is that a big of a problem. Wastes 60 seconds, but that is about it. Also if the LH flight is the last option listed, there's a pretty good chance it will be phantom availability.

Also anybody had experience with phantom availability showing up in the list of non-stop flights?

OptionsCLE

The flights are sorted by trip duration, so the fact that it shows up last shouldn't have anything to do with the availability. And yes, I've seen plenty of phantom seats show on nonstops.

rufflesinc

I was trying to get two FRA-DTW (for PEK-FRA-DTW) in F at T-14. .com showed two seats, but phone call only found one. So I put a dummy FRA-DTW on hold for two ppl. Sometime overnight, it went from waitlist to confirmed. I then canceled the dummy hold, both seats went back into inventory immed, and I was able to make change.

goodeats21

When I am making an original booking, phantom is annoying, but not that big of a problem.

I find it much more annoying when searching for better options on an existing ticket. Also takes up time for 1K desk and myself to call in and have them try to book it.

Also, I don't think the position on the search results display has any relation to phantom vrs not.