Award Trip on One PNR Split into Two-Why?
May 29, 2012, 6:51 am
#1
Original Poster
Join Date: Feb 1999
Location: Denver CO
Posts: 3,682
Award Trip on One PNR Split into Two-Why?
Two weeks ago I booked an award for my wife and me using UA miles. All the flights are on either Swiss or Lufthansa. I received an email showing the single locator number and the flight booking with both of our names.
A couple of days ago I called to get the Swiss and Lufthansa locator numbers so I could choose seats and the UA rep said our UA reservation had been split into two reservations, each with a distinct locator number. I checked each reservation carefully and they appear to be ok. The CSR could offer no reason why this was done.
While we now have two UA PNRs, we only have one combined reservation and one PNR on each of the other two airlines, which I confirmed when I called each of them for seats.
Since my wife and I have equal status on UA, I can't think of how this might hurt us, but it always makes me nervous when things start moving around for no apparent reason.
Anyone have any thoughts on this?
A couple of days ago I called to get the Swiss and Lufthansa locator numbers so I could choose seats and the UA rep said our UA reservation had been split into two reservations, each with a distinct locator number. I checked each reservation carefully and they appear to be ok. The CSR could offer no reason why this was done.
While we now have two UA PNRs, we only have one combined reservation and one PNR on each of the other two airlines, which I confirmed when I called each of them for seats.
Since my wife and I have equal status on UA, I can't think of how this might hurt us, but it always makes me nervous when things start moving around for no apparent reason.
Anyone have any thoughts on this?
May 29, 2012, 8:31 am
#3
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Apr 2008
Location: LGA/JFK/EWR
Programs: UA 1K1.75MM, Hyatt Globalist, abandoned Marriott LTT (RIP SPG), Hertz PC
Posts: 21,170
Really stinks, even though it hopefully shouldn't matter for you. It's one thing for SHARES to split with the whole T-24 UG nonsense, but another thing entirely for an award ticket that doesn't have any UA metal on it...
May 29, 2012, 3:37 pm
#4
Original Poster
Join Date: Feb 1999
Location: Denver CO
Posts: 3,682
I spent an hour on the phone with UA yesterday on this. Since I have checked with the operating airlines and also online with LH (you can't access records online with Swiss), and it all seems normal, my remaining question is why UA did it.
After being cutoff once, I reached a supervisor, though I asked for the ticketing desk and never got there. The supervisor went back and saw that when UA asked Swiss for our two seats originally, only one was released to UA, even though two were available (which I knew from research before I booked the trip). So UA had one seat and had to write back to Swiss to get the second so in order to not lose the Swiss seat they had, they split our trip into 2 UA PNRs, put the seat they had in one and pursued and eventually got the second seat into the second PNR.
Bonnie Raitt does a song called "Easy's Getting Harder Every Day". The supervisor, who sounded pretty aware, said this sort of thing has been happening a lot and many customers are demading that their two PNRs be put back under one PNR but UA's system has no way to do that. I guess I could invest another couple of hours on the phone and demand that they cancel the whole trip and rebook it under one PNR but I'm not of a mind to do that for two reasons. First, as mentioned above, I've checked all of this with the operating airlines and everything looks good (and since the trip isn't until next year, I'll be checking again a few times). Second, rebooking could run into availability issues if the seats I have get gobbled up after the cancellation and before the trip gets rebooked. Or there could be other screw-ups that come out of the rebooking process, so I'm going to go with the devil I know.
Clearly, UA is a wounded bird at the moment-While I wasted a lot of time on the phone, UA is paying people to deal with me and all the others cleaning up these apparently widespread array of errors, which earns UA nothing but bad karma with its customers.
After being cutoff once, I reached a supervisor, though I asked for the ticketing desk and never got there. The supervisor went back and saw that when UA asked Swiss for our two seats originally, only one was released to UA, even though two were available (which I knew from research before I booked the trip). So UA had one seat and had to write back to Swiss to get the second so in order to not lose the Swiss seat they had, they split our trip into 2 UA PNRs, put the seat they had in one and pursued and eventually got the second seat into the second PNR.
Bonnie Raitt does a song called "Easy's Getting Harder Every Day". The supervisor, who sounded pretty aware, said this sort of thing has been happening a lot and many customers are demading that their two PNRs be put back under one PNR but UA's system has no way to do that. I guess I could invest another couple of hours on the phone and demand that they cancel the whole trip and rebook it under one PNR but I'm not of a mind to do that for two reasons. First, as mentioned above, I've checked all of this with the operating airlines and everything looks good (and since the trip isn't until next year, I'll be checking again a few times). Second, rebooking could run into availability issues if the seats I have get gobbled up after the cancellation and before the trip gets rebooked. Or there could be other screw-ups that come out of the rebooking process, so I'm going to go with the devil I know.
Clearly, UA is a wounded bird at the moment-While I wasted a lot of time on the phone, UA is paying people to deal with me and all the others cleaning up these apparently widespread array of errors, which earns UA nothing but bad karma with its customers.