Help! Did I trick FareLock? Codeshares included but not showing up in itineary!
 

Hi all,

I hope it's okay to start a new thread for this as I couldn't find any matching thread for my problem. I know that there are some FareLock threads but I am not sure if my problem also could be a general problem with united.

I tried to book a flight today via expedia.com which was CPH-LHR-SFO-KOA HNL-ORD-FRA-CPH. All operated by UA except CPH-LHR and FRA-CPH. I booked this flight but Expedia coudn't issue my ticket for the existing reservation as the flight from CPH-LHR was somehow not available. It also didn't show up when checking with the expedia code on united.com. I declined their offer to make a new booking as I found out I could hold the reservation with United FareLock when booking on united.com.

Now usually codeshares are not eligible for FareLock but I found out when accessing via kayak.com the option to hold the fare showed up also for the codeshares. Sorry if this is a known issue, but I didn't know it. After numerous booking attempts erroring out at payment the booking went through.

I got an United reservation code, a code for SK (CPH-LHR) and an LH code for FRA-CPH. Now when I check on the SK website with my SK confirmation code the flight CPH-LHR doesn't show up. I am a bit worried as this flight also wasn't shown in the expedia booking, which was cancelled as a result of a problem with this flight. The SK homepage will only show the legs LHR-SFO-KOA but not their own flight. The LH code will show ORD-FRA-CPH. This all looks strange to me. Though when checking with the united code on the united website all flights are included.

It would be great if anybody could give me some advice here, as I am worried I will not be able to purchase the flight in the end.

Seems unlikely that anyone will be able to say definitively that it will or won't work until you try. Given that they let you hold it they should make good on it if the segment fails, but no guarantees.

Two points:
Farelock indeed does not work for codeshares, but if you tried to ticket a held flight and they took you're money, they're on the hook for trying to book it at the price they quoted.

Second, I've found that for some reason reservations with SK tend to take much longer to ticket than any other carrier I've used. It's been almost a full 24 hours (or maybe even a bit longer) for a paid ticket and almost 48 hours for an award ticket. These are data points for flights to/from CPH that I've booked in the last month or two.

Have you tried calling? An agent who can actually look at your reservation might be much more helpful than the FT community at this point.

Thanks so far! I don't know if I should call them. I am afraid this could lead to an cancellation. Maybe I should wait and if I decide purchase it just look if they issue the ticket. I think I could be in a stronger position if I have an issued e-ticket, even if there is a missing leg. Then its uniteds task to solve the issue. Now I am afraid they just could say it is a faulty reservation and will cancel it as an e-ticket was never issued.

What do you think?

You don't have a ticket yet so things like the DoT protections do not apply. Beyond that, my prior view hasn't changed. It might not work and then you're at UA's mercy to either get that segment confirmed or not.

Heh I see you are trying to get in on the good fares from CPH to HNL as well.

I've spent the better part of a day trying to book CPH-HNL. What is happening is that the UA-codeshare flights for SK have bogus inventory, which is why the ticket is never getting issued (all you get, as you note, is the reservation). At a technical level, UA sends a request to SK for space and SK is always denying it, because the UA codeshare buckets do not match up with actual SK inventory - UA is asking for K bucket but SK at best maybe has L.

The workaround is to force the SK flight directly (so instead of booking UA7783 or whatever, book SK123), usually done via multi-leg search.

If the underlying SK flight truly has K inventory, then your ticket should issue no problem.

Calling won't help, as the agents will have the same problem you are.

it's amazing weeks after they've realized they can't sell the tickets, they still show up on searches.
Had the same problem with a segment LHR-CPH, best 2 different agents could do was to offer a ticket that was twice the price.

Did you try doing a multi-city search (CPH-LHR, LHR-HNL, HNL-CPH)? I did this on Hipmunk and it gave me a bookable fare for the dates I wanted, although it was about $100 more than the advertised fare.

This is actually a good tip, because you can use the ITA routing language to force it book an SK flight number as opposed to a codeshare. United.com, for all its faults, seems perfectly happy to accept these fare constructions fed to it by HipMunk.

Now i can find "This flight segment cannot be confirmed. Please contact United Reservations for assistance" in my itineary on united.com :-(. Will contact them tomorrow

Just to let you know. It wasn't possible to purchase the flight online. As stated here before (thanks andrewwm) the false SK inventory was the reason. Spent 1 hour on the phone to solve this issue. Maybe I got too nervous I still could hold the reservation for a longer time. They honored the Farelock eventhough there was no K class more available. I got CPH-FRA-SFO-KOA in V class instead of K class for the same price! I think this is a good news as the regular price right now for this combination is about 400 Eur more then I paid!

I have to say that's a really respectable resolution. Kudos to whoever handled this at United!