Award ticket on hold, backdated somehow causing it to prematurely cancel
Feb 8, 2015, 2:59 pm
#1
Original Poster
Join Date: Dec 2005
Location: Kirkland, WA
Programs: AS 75K,UA Gold 1.6MM, Hilton Dia, Marriott LT Plat, Hyatt Glb, Natl Exec, Hertz 5*
Posts: 3,657
Award ticket on hold, backdated somehow causing it to prematurely cancel
United incompetence strikes again:
On 2/7, I booked a round trip business saver award trip to UK over the summer involving LH, AC, and EI. Due to the EI legs, it needed to be put on hold. I was told explicitly, it would be held for 48 hours but I needed to call back within that period or it would cancel automatically. I checked my account and I see the pending reservation.
30 minutes later, I called to change the itinerary slightly to make one of the EI legs one hour earlier to increase connection time at LHR.
Today, 2/8, I call, within the 24 hour window to check, just to be SAFE, so that it won't cancel in 24 hours, especially since oddly, the 2nd agent, who made the change, stated 24 hours.
I am told when I call, they see that my reservation was CANCELLED, automatically at midnight 2/7. They say the reservation date was 2/1 !! and that's why it cancelled since the hold time had passed.
After 1K agent contacted supervisor, they transferred me to MP desk (telling me it would be 1K MP) but it was a standard MP agent who didn't feel they could do anything but transferred me to Alliance desk, who worked to put the reservation back together.
Of course, availability had changed and I was unable to get my outbound flight on the same day anymore so had to lose one day of my vacation. I was told they could contact Customer Service to try and put me on a UA flight, but I was explicitly trying to AVOID UA, so not an option for me. That was met with a chuckle. The agent put it back together with the 1 day change and its out on hold again (even re-used the same record locator).
I guess I am screwed. I can try and watch availability to see if the seats I originally took ever come back but maybe someone already scarfed them up or maybe they will sit in limbo forever, never to return to inventory?
On 2/7, I booked a round trip business saver award trip to UK over the summer involving LH, AC, and EI. Due to the EI legs, it needed to be put on hold. I was told explicitly, it would be held for 48 hours but I needed to call back within that period or it would cancel automatically. I checked my account and I see the pending reservation.
30 minutes later, I called to change the itinerary slightly to make one of the EI legs one hour earlier to increase connection time at LHR.
Today, 2/8, I call, within the 24 hour window to check, just to be SAFE, so that it won't cancel in 24 hours, especially since oddly, the 2nd agent, who made the change, stated 24 hours.
I am told when I call, they see that my reservation was CANCELLED, automatically at midnight 2/7. They say the reservation date was 2/1 !! and that's why it cancelled since the hold time had passed.
After 1K agent contacted supervisor, they transferred me to MP desk (telling me it would be 1K MP) but it was a standard MP agent who didn't feel they could do anything but transferred me to Alliance desk, who worked to put the reservation back together.
Of course, availability had changed and I was unable to get my outbound flight on the same day anymore so had to lose one day of my vacation. I was told they could contact Customer Service to try and put me on a UA flight, but I was explicitly trying to AVOID UA, so not an option for me. That was met with a chuckle. The agent put it back together with the 1 day change and its out on hold again (even re-used the same record locator).
I guess I am screwed. I can try and watch availability to see if the seats I originally took ever come back but maybe someone already scarfed them up or maybe they will sit in limbo forever, never to return to inventory?
