burlax

Did UA send you a receipt and an e-ticket? They do once your reservation is confirmed and ticketed. Once that happens, you do have a remedy. If they never sent you an e-ticket, it probably means that your reservation was never ticketed.

pigx5

Your purchase is confirmed which doesn't mean your purchase is finished.
It's like LIFETIME BENEFIT is not LIFETIME.
COdbaUA and its beloved, SHARES, likes to play games.

You should get 2 e-mails, the first one is your purchase is confirmed and the 2nd one is your e-ticket.
If you don't get your e-ticket email, it means your purchase is not finished.

RobOnLI

Correct, it never ticketed. I know I have a remedy if it did ticket.

What I want to know is what the hell "Your purchase is confirmed" means after you get an email saying it could take up to 24 hours to confirm your reservation. Once the website shows it's confirmed the passenger should be able to go to sleep knowing everything is good with the reservation and that it will ticket shortly.

Instead of ticketing my flights were removed from the itinerary. So my purchase never really was confirmed if I understand UA's message correctly.

I'm not asking about recourse because they aren't honoring a ticket - I have none there because it wasn't ticketed.

-RM

mrkymark

Sometimes it even says it "will take a few days" for the internal processing to complete.

When I believed it I got screwed cause record locator got wiped out and no record of reservation existed in the system.

Fortunately I used a UA gift card which recorded that indeed the GC was used on a phantom record locator and they rebooked me backdating the correct fare.

I was told that if you dont get e-ticket within 1 hr you need to call UA.

I feel you, and in your case the phantom record locator will never be adequately retrieved. You should write corporate though and send copies of your e-mails.

Thunderroad

Conceivably could be a UA ticketing error, but sounds more like really sloppy, misleading language on UA's part. Yes, you're certainly justified in your unhappiness with UA.

burlax

I had a similar issue with a UA ticket for TK flight a while back. Booked on .bomb but reservation did not show as confirmed. Called UA, CSR put notes on PNR, and told me to call back in 24 hours because UA couldn't confirm TK availability. I called 12 hours later - no news. I ended up cancelling and rebooking with US.

mherdeg

I think what "your purchase is confirmed" is meant to convey is that United is guaranteeing you the space and price you were offered. Maybe this just isn't true for non-UA segments?

From your story, it sounds like the United agents you talked to decided to go a different route. That's too bad. If they couldn't honor the space & price they offered, they should have found another way to route you zrh-xxx.

That's really too bad. Somehow I got the impression that "doing what you said you were going to do" was a core UA value.

chinatraderjmr

I would guess the days of booking partner flights w quick ticketing times on .bomb are gone unless you want to take a chance. UA is not stupid & this is what they need to do in order to protect themselves from being responsible for mistakes. Thanks everyone who complained to the DOT about the 4mile mistake. I guarantee this is where this is coming from & you can't blame UA for this

FlyerChrisK

No, "purchase is confirmed" is insufficient. You need a ticket number(s) to travel. Even once you have ticket numbers in hand, it is worth calling each individual operating carrier to verify that the coupons are correct (given the number of issues with SHARES dropping supposedly confirmed segments).

I've seen way too many horror stories on FT of people having to buy a last-minute ticket because they didn't actually verify that they were ticketed for a flight they expected to fly (namely while being far from home in an unfamiliar locale) to not leave home without knowing that I'm fully ticketed.

pigx5

This is nothing to do with the 4 miles tickets and you are so nice to help UA to find excuses.
It happens a lot since 3/3 and this should complain to DOT.
It's the SHARES problem.
Please check this thread especially #45 and you will see since when
this started.

chinatraderjmr

You should complain to the DOT cuz partner airlines can take up to 24 hours to confirm How do you figure that? It's the partner that takes time to confirm, not UA & while most airlines & travel agents ignore this, it's standard w EVERY airline that confirmation "HK" can take up to 24 hours

And yes, I realize this has always been a problem but it sounds like the problem has gotten much worse in the last month. I don't know why & I'm not helping UA w their excuses but I said a long time ago that UA could hurt us all by making us wait longer for ticketing & if you don't think UA thought of that w the 4 mile deal your fooling yourself

pigx5

This has always been the SHARES problem and if you are trying to find excuse
for UA. You are fooling yourself.
Drop segments and confirmed but not ticketed is SHARES' expertise.
UA doesn't need to improve their software because people already found the
excuse for them.

chinatraderjmr

What excuse are you talking about. We all know SHARES sucks. We all know it drops segments, forgets to send tkt numbers, etc all the time & there is NO excuse for that! I am talking about something different. I am ONLY talking about "partner" flights taking "longer" to ticket. Sorry but there is a good excuse for that & I gave it in my other post. I'm no UA apologist so your talking to the wrong person if you think I'm making excuses for SHARES or UA cuz I'm not. But even the most anti UA person can't really believe that EVERYTHING is their fault (or can they?)

pigx5

No EVERYTHING is their fault but drop segments and tell you confirmed but never ticketed is. I had confirmed reservation with all UA flights like this and it got disappeared few days later without real ticket issued, I guess this has to
do with 4 miles ticket as well.....

chinatraderjmr

I never said that did I? Please don't put words in my mouth. I simply said that UA is taking longer to ticket partner awards and why I think that's the case. I was not talking about dropped segments, I was not talking about "confirmed" reservations that don't ticket. I was ONLY talking about delays in ticketing itin w partner airlines involved. You can't blame them for taking longer to ticket, which is their right & they are NOT the only airline to do this. It is a very good way for UA to no longer get stuck w mistakes if they take their time ticketing & check things more thoroughly. That's it! That's all I said. I am not talking about dropped segments, or anything else. If someone has a "confirmed" reservation it's not hard to call the partner airline & confirm its ticketed. If its not ticketed, it may drop segments