coolcoil

These two things apply only when you buy a ticket from COPA that includes flights on UA metal. They do NOT apply when you buy the ticket from UA and COPA metal is on the itinerary:

1) If you want to make a change, the higher UA change fee will apply, even if your change is not to the UA portion*. I had a trip this week where the outbound was all COPA and the return included UA. I called to ask about a change to the outbound, and was told the change fee would be $250, not the $115 I was expecting, because the reissue would include UA. The fact that I was only trying to change the all-COPA leg and not change the return leg made no difference.

2) If UA upgrades you on the return leg(s), they may screw up your reservation if you are connecting beyond PTY. This happened to me twice in the last three months. I was returning home XXX-IAH-PTY-MDE with the first two legs on UA metal and the last on COPA. In both cases, my CM leg disappeared from the UA website after I was ugraded, but it still showed on COPA. The first time, I just went to check in at the airport, and they told me I needed proof that I had a flight leaving Panama. I explained that I was leaving immediately on COPA, and it had been showing on my UA PNR until recently. Long story short, it took the agent 25 minutes on the phone to get things fixed and check me in. Fortunately, I had arrived early, so I did not miss the flight.

This week, I saw the same thing happen on the UA website, so I called UA to get it fixed. The phone agent told me that COPA had cancelled my PTY-MDE leg, and I needed to call COPA. The leg still showed on m.copa.com. I called COPA, and they figured out what happened: When UA upgraded me, they changed my IAH-PTY reservation from a COPA codeshare to a UA flight number and reissued the ticket. Somehow that either triggered COPA to tell UA I was cancelled or UA did it themselves. The very helpful COPA agent took about 10 minutes to figure out what to do, and then told me that they would reissue the ticket, and all would be good in about 40 minutes. He was as good as his word, the flight reappeared on UA.com and I was able to check in online (and got Pre-Check!).

So, note that even though this is a problem caused by UA, you still have to call COPA to get it fixed.

* Yes, I know the same change fee applies if you buy from UA but it would not be something unexpected.

kenn0223

#1 is true with ANY airline ticket regardless of carrier. The fare rules dictate the change fees and, usually, the more restrictive fare rules apply. This is pretty standard business for any airline.

#2 it sounds like nothing actually got canceled it just was an issue with the ticket and PNRs not matching? COPA still had your reservation for their flights and UA had your reservations for their flights and the whole thing was ticketed. It sounds like the only problem was that you didn't have proof of onward journey from PTY (which was resolved in a few minutes). I think one airline providing details from another in their PNR is really just for convenience and I wouldn't rely on it. If you want to be sure you always have a PNR that includes your entire journey use a travel agent. In the future, inserted of going though all the trouble you describe why not just print off your original confirmation email before going to the airport?

KenInEscazu

I'm encouraged by this report that a Copa agent was able to resolve it quickly and accurately. While I have always had problems that resulted in calling Copa post-flight, they haven't ever been very helpful. (And I'm being kind, at that.)

I am surprised that the Premier desk at UA wouldn't make the calls for you in that case. They may not always be fast, but I find them to be pretty attentive to problem resolution. That they wouldn't call CM for you is disappointing.

I'm moving to MDE next month, so this is an interesting set of events of which I'll make a mental note. This could easily happen to me many times going forward, as I fly north about once per month. While I frequently pay for premium cabin seating via Z fares, if the flights don't appear to be too full, I'll roll the dice on the CPU table.

coolcoil

The reason that I pointed out that the UA change fee applies is because COPA's website says that the change fee for economy non-refundable is $115. The only way you would know that the fee is actually $250 is if you read the fare rules. Further, a reasonable person might believe that if you are changing the flight that does not include UA legs, you would not have to pay the UA change fee.

As for the second point, I do not believe that you understand what happened. The problem was that UA lost the information that I had a leg leaving Panama. In order to give me a BP for a flight to Panama, they need proof that I have a flight out of the country scheduled. As a matter of fact, in the first case I did have my printed PNR from COPA, and the agent believed me. Unfortunately, the computer didn't agree and would not accept a manual override from the agent. And, it was not a "few minutes" to straighten it out - it was 25 minutes while I was standing at the check-in desk.

I did not say that my actual reservation on COPA was cancelled. I said that the UA phone agent told me it was cancelled. As far as UA was concerned it was indeed cancelled. I knew it was not because I could still see it on the COPA website, but my word alone (or a printed COPA reservation) is not going to convince Shares to print me a BP for Panama.

Normally, partner reservations between UA and COPA work very well. The point of making this post was to warn others who are used to smooth operation that they might run into a flaw in the system.

Your comment about using a travel agent is incorrect. As a matter of fact, both of these trips were booked through my work travel agency (American Express). There is nothing a travel agent can do to create a single PNR if the two airlines have separate reservations systems. You might get a single number from the travel agency, but that is the agency's record locator, not the airlines'. That number will get you absolutely nowhere when you are talking to an airline.

You are also incorrect about airlines providing details about partner flights in a PNR is "really just for convenience." They need that information to 1) ensure that you are transiting the country to which they are sending you and 2) to be be able to check your luggage to the final destination. If they did not do that, then everybody flying through a third country would have to go through a lengthy manual process at the check-in desk.

kenn0223

Why would you look at COPA's website for information about a ticket you purchased from United? You should always read the fare rules as they are the only binding information about the ticket you are buying.

I agree, it would likely have been a lot faster if the UA PNR has information about their flights and COPA's flights. Seems that other than a 25 minute delay it worked out fine.


My comment about a TA is exactly correct. The TA's PNR would likely have had all of the information with references to both the UA PNR and the COPA PNR (with their respective flights) and that (the travel agent's) PNR is what you should have been looking at if you wanted to see the complete trip.

If you are using a travel agent why are you calling the airline directly? The travel agent is the one who issued the ticket and is responsible for servicing it until departure. I am surprised UA & COPA would even touch it, usually they refer you back to the travel agent. It seems like you were trying to circumvent your travel agent.

1) Meeting entry requirements is purely the traveler's responsibility. It sounds like everything worked out fine after you told them what flight you were taking out of PTY. I don't understand the issue, is the problem that it took 25 minutes? That could have well been an issue with the agent just not knowing how to enter the onward journey information correctly. Was the result of the 25 minute check-in exercise them adding the ex-PTY segment back to the PNR? What would they have done if you purchased your ex-PTY on a non-COPA carrier? Also, are you a US citizen? If so, I don't think you need a visa to enter Panama so the onward ticket is irrelevant.

2) You can easily check bags beyond what is in a given PNR, you just need the flight information (and sometimes the OA PNR).

I stand by my connivence statement. I fly on multi-airline itineraries all the time and it's common for the different airline PNRs to be incomplete (and only show their flights). IME, its rare for UA's PNR to have all the partner flights.

PVDtoDEL

The UA PNR does not need to reflect the CM segments. Next time such an issue comes up, ask the agent to pull up your reservation by ticket number.

emcampbe

Are you suggesting that you agreed to the fare rules when you purchased the ticket, but because you apparently didn't read them, you wanted them to change it to what you thought they should be? As pointed out earlier, the most restrictive fare rules applying is pretty standard. Just because you didn't read what you agreed to, doesn't mean it shouldn't apply.

KenInEscazu

Hey CoolCoil... I understand and agree with everything you said. If that were my itinerary that had the CM flight removed, it would also set off an alarm that the close relationship between UA and Copa would increase the likelihood of my CM ticket being canceled after I "no showed" on the original PNR on UA.

mherdeg

To the poster's first point, yes, one of the things you "learn" as you enter "flying world" is that the most restrictive fare rules always apply to an entire itinerary. It's a bummer that this lesson had to be learned the expensive way.

But yes, it's true that the very close business relationship between CM and UA might create the misleading impression that they publisher similar fares & have the same business practices. They really, really don't! Just for one example, when you buy tickets from copaair.com, you get a remarkable 25% PQM bonus on CM flights, which is nothing like anything offered by UA right now. For another example � Copa participates in the "Plusgrade" scheme where you can bid for upgrades. Totally different companies despite the misleadingly tight marketing!

To the poster's second point, this sounds familiar � we once had a UA agent in SEA manage to cancel our check-in at every point beyond SEA-IAH, resulting in lost seats to IAH-PTY and a ticket that was out of sync & unable to be checked in on PTY-LIM, which we noticed immediately upon landing but which took a good 10 minutes at the PTY club to sort out. That doesn't seem like a lot of time, but given that we had about a 75 minute layover�

wwu123

I think I had a similar thing happen last week with a Lufthansa ticket, except in my case only the first leg was United (under a LH codeshare) that came through at the last minute with a GPU upgrade. Somehow that made the UA part of my ticket invalid, at least to UA, and the Premier desk kept telling me on two different calls that I needed to call LH to get the ticket reissued.

Except that LH phone desk said my ticket looked fine and did not need to be reissued. However, they said that they had no visibility and nothing to do with UA-approved upgrades on UA metal, and to them I was still in UA economy.

Fortunately I discovered all this not at the airport, but the day before while trying to do UA OLCI, where the website came back with a "no valid ticket" error. After playing tag with both airlines for 20 minutes, finally talked to a UA phone agent who did something for 10 min, and then I was able to OCLI just fine.

eefor jfp

He bought the ticket from COPA, not from United. He looked on CPA's website for the change fees. I agree with the OP that it seems logical that what COPA shows on its website for tickets on its own metal would apply. I understand that you need to read the fare rules for the individual ticket, but these are getting harder and harder to find on many sites, as is fare bucket information, especially on itineraries that include multiple airlines. The last time I tried to purchase tickets for a fairly simple itinerary Europe-US (round trip) I looked on Expedia, Priceline, AmEx and NOT ONE of them had accessible fare rules (probably because not one of them displayed the fare bucket) just the generic crap that there would be change fees, that the ticket was most likely non-refundable, etc.; absolutely nothing helpful or pertinent. I eventually purchased the ticket from Lufthansa by putting together a multi-city itinerary to get the flights and routing I wanted and LH only had generic rules for their own segments (which, I guess from this thread applies to all the UA segments as well). Lots of words like "may" and "might" along with a Euro amount for a change fee or cancellation. Pretty lame if you ask me. They did give me the booking class but never the detailed fare rules for that class--for that I need Expert Flyer or KVS.

kenn0223

The OP states that he purchased the ticket from UA. (See below)

I guess I view it differently and it would not seem logical that the rules on one companies website would apply to a product you purchased from someone else. If you buy an iPad from Best Buy would you expect them to honor the Apple Store's return policy? I don't think so, so why would you expect one airline to honor the policies of another?


I agree that various retailers don't do a good job of providing the fare rules (UA's site does but you have to dig though for them)...There is always the telephone. Absent getting the actual fare rules you have to make some assumptions, in this case the OP's assumptions were wrong. Next time I suspect they will either look more closely for the rules, take the risk, or find an alternative to purchasing from UA/COPA.