imm2b

I didn't know about this thread until I read Matt's blog.

I had the exact same issue in Dec., 2013. Out of no where 2 F awards on Air China were canceled. I received an email from United in Chinese about the cancelation. Luckily, UA was able to reinstate the same CA flight. After the unbelievably bad CA F experience, I wished they stayed canceled.

Superior to OZ? LOL! I'd say on par or below UA C

To be fair, I was on the old 747's which had the old F seats and antiquated AVOD. If you are on 777's, they are much improved. CA F food is of low end Chinese restaurant quality (out of SFO). FAs don't speak much English, if you can speak Chinese, this shouldn't matter. Set your expectation low, you'll be fine. Perhaps, I was unlucky and my flight was an abnormally.

Kacee

Please enlighten us

There are several here who insist CA is equal or superior to OZ.

restlessinRNO

Although this is possibly a little off topic , I would also appreciate any comments you wish to share regarding your CA F flights, as I have similar flights coming up in the future. Thanks.

aBroadAbroad

OT, but for future reference, the quickest way to check on a thread where you've previously posted is to use the MyFlyerTalk button or links.

critten

UPDATE:

Response by CA in regards to the award booking.

"The mileage award seats allocated for the CA flights in question were limited and were used as follows: 2 seats were used by CX, 2 seats were used by AC, 1 seat was used by US Airways and 4 seats were used by UA. None of these seats were allocated or given to CA customers. When an airline such as UA cancels its allocated and reserved mileage award seats, CA cannot allocate more mileage award seats for use by UA ticketed passengers after CA cancels its reserved mileage award seats, as this would open the door to a carrier such as UA controlling the restricted inventory of CA seats to be used by UA mileage award passengers."

So the award theory, that CA passengers took the extra award seats, seems wrong. Revenue seats were probably still available (and not affected by award seats?).

I can guess that MAYBE someone on UA canceled and rebooked other UA awards. Seems mighty fishy, and seems that UA may should have a good record on this, if it was rebooked UA.

Thoughts? I am as puzzled as ever!

DaviddesJ

Why do you say that? It seems to exactly support that theory. CA gives some bogus reason for not letting UA rebook passengers on the seats that were allocated to UA, therefore they become available to CA passengers.

JONEZY00

OT but we had a decent CA experience IAH-PEK in F on their 777. Seat was on par with other 1st class products, food and beverage more J.

Here is a link to the review

http://www.travelingwiththejones.com...light-service/

MSPeconomist

I interpret these words as suggesting that CA wanted CA customers to get CA award seats. So perhaps CA did the cancellations instead of brokers. In any event, they refuse to cooperate with UA to restore UA customers' award tickets.

UA_Flyer

Here is the response I received from GS:

Kacee

It's ambiguous. But one reading (probably the most reasonable) is that once reserved seats which were originally allocated to UA are cancelled, they return to general inventory and cannot be reallocated for UA awards.

In other words, cancellation of UA award seats would in fact work to the benefit of waitlisted CA customers.

critten

"None of these seats were allocated or given to CA customers. " if the waitlist theory was true, wouldn't CA have an award seat allocated to its own member. I guess I took this statement as: no CA awards on this flight.

villox

Their statement answers a question that nobody was asking, except maybe whether the awards were being booked on CA stock. I think people are looking for a history of the award allocation. They gave a breakdown of how many seats were allocated to which airline, but not how many of each were done before the cancellations.

If whoever was doing this was actually canceling on UA and then immediately rebooking through UA, then UA should be able to see that and rectify the situation.

Kacee

Again, it's ambiguous. But that sentence appears before the description of what happened to the seats post-cancellation. I recognize there may be a language issue here. But if I'm just interpreting this based on how it's written in English, I don't see any statement as to what happened to the seats after they were allegedly cancelled by UA.

Ultimately, the only way to know for sure what really happened would be to see the actual record of what happened with the seats. Were they rebooked by UA pax, did they go back in the revenue pool, or were they used for CA award bookings?

Yeah presumably it would take UA about five minutes to run that report.

And that would be such a gross violation of UA program rules, I would expect some pretty swift and draconian action on UA's part.

lewende

This statement basically tells nothing, and who says Chinese brokers only use CA miles to book those CA O/I seats being released from unauthorized cancellation?

AFAIK, the mileage programs mentioned above (CX/AC/US) are widely used in Chinese frequent flyer community.

critten

Well if it went to other ua people, I got the cancellation 5 min after it happened and checked ca stock. 10mins and I was already talking to a rep about it. I don't think that availability reshowed up for awhile if ever. That is why CA award waitlist made sense. But if there are no CA award seats- they must know exactly when award is released (maybe instant) and took it. Usually, when I book an award it does not remove it from the site right away either(just errors when trying to book too many seats)

Just puzzling who knows