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NYT Article - She Boarded a Plane to See Her Dying Mother. Then Her Ticket Was Cancel

NYT Article - She Boarded a Plane to See Her Dying Mother. Then Her Ticket Was Cancel

Old Jan 30, 2018, 12:02 am
  #106  
 
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My feeling is that there is something more to this story that we don't know, so I'll refrain from blaming.

Originally Posted by djohannw
One more thing that seems strange to me on this...my understanding of airline tickets is that every coupon has it's own status - once issued and paid it goes to open, then moves to "airport control" once it is used to check-in for the segment, and finally once the flight is boarded (so once you pass the scanner) it moves to "flown". Also my understanding is that a ticket can only be voided when the coupon status is either "open" or "airport control", so unless the agency got someone at UA to manually revert the coupon from flown (as the passenger was on board already) to either open or airport control, they should not be able to cancel the ticket.
I remember checking Saudi's website for my ticket after boarding a UA flight and while boarding was still ongoing and the coupon was still under airport control. It was "flown" when I checked again after landing. So maybe the change from airport control to flown isn't immediate. It could happen in batches during boarding, or in one batch before or after the door closes, or even later when the plane is off the ground. So maybe the ticket was voided during boarding, and the GA noticed when she closed the flight and the system threw an error when reconciling the coupons. If the TA really thought it was fraud, AND they really tried to call the pax until the last minute and canceled when they couldn't reach the pax, this could have been what happened (but this is speculation).

However, I always thought that "airport control" meant that the TA would have to at least contact the entity that had "control" of the coupon, here the "airport", to confirm the cancelation.

Originally Posted by chermorg
To my understanding a ticket is "valid" and can thus be "modified" until the time the last leg of the ticket has been fully
A ticket is valid for one year from the date on which transportation commences at the point of origin, or, if no portion of the ticket is used, one year from the date of issuance.
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Old Jan 30, 2018, 7:42 am
  #107  
 
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Originally Posted by narvik
We are getting our information from rather sloppy journalism, so I wouldn't want to assume that those words ("Nobody flies for free") were the FIRST thing the GA uttered. We have no way of telling what words were exchanged, and seem to automatically sympathize with the passenger. I'm not so sure that is appropriate, but alas, we simply don't know.

I've only read three articles on this case, and here's my scoring:
NYT: terrible journalism, seems to be original source. D-
NBCnews: decent. No overly emotional bias and negativity toward UA either: B+
Flyertalk (Jeff Edwards): even worse than NYT article, wow! Just regurgitating NYT article with no effort whatsoever: F (added: apparently the quote "Nobody flies for free" above the headline of this article has been removed since posting)
The Jeff Edwards article is appalling. The Nobody flies for free is still in the headline and the article is still on the front page of FT. Who is this guy not a real journalist?
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Old Jan 31, 2018, 12:15 pm
  #108  
 
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Originally Posted by chuck1
I am a travel agent and I can assure you my clients do call United and modify their own bookings - not often - but it can and does happen - especially on day of departure and late at night or on weekends.
That said, if I saw a modification, I would never void a ticket, which by the way can only be done within 24 hours after the sale.
Now I do know all of my clients and don't take new ones without referrals from existing ones but it is very strange that even
an OTA would void a ticket if they saw a record modified.
I am confused that if United changed the record why the e-ticket didn't change to EXCH (exchange) status which would have made it impossible for the agency to change the status to VOID. I guess they could have revalidated it which is a more simple process where the agency can retain control but rarely done any longer.
I would have been nice if the gate would have let her go and follow up with agency accounting later and perhaps issued a debit memo to the agency or whatever was necessary to get her there.
I am a Travel Agent too and in my training I was told that all tickets have a history of who made the change and on what date and which agent did the change. If the change was done by the Passenger it would say PAX called in to change flt from UA 874 to LH454 on 013118 at 13:50 hours. Change fee of $200 was collected by Agent 3Z45 PNR3Q7A5 See Ticket Exchange#24040 etc. This is to ensure the security of the airline and passenger.

Originally Posted by cjermain
I may be misreading the posts, but I don't think anyone has suggested that the GA just unilaterally let her fly.



This situation was quite unique in that they were asking someone who boarded with a valid ticket to deplane. Without the passenger's knowledge, the ticket was cancelled. This is a fantastic set of circumstances. I don't think any precedent would have been set.

I think the point is that a front line employee, upon encountering an extraordinary situation might consider various options to make things come out right. This could include a call to management to see what could be done. And if nothing could be done, or if the plane simply had to push back right away, some sympathy would have gone a long way. A good rule is: don't say things to a customer that won't look good printed in the paper tomorrow.

That said, I get the point that none of us were there, and some have suggested that the reporting is quite biased against UA. Plus almost everyone agrees that the real fault for the whole situation is with the agent. So I wouldn't judge UA too harshly.
How was the passenger allowed through security without a valid ticket? Was the ticket cancelled before or after the passeger cleared security? It makes me wonder if the TSA Boarding Pass scanner has a real time link with the airline computer reservation systems? If there was a security risk the counter agent should be able to key in a code to invalidate the ticket and the TSA person who scans the boarding pass would be alerted to an issue and would escort the passenger to an office to further research the problem.

Also if the passenger had already cleared security the airline could ask the passenger to return to the ticket counter.

Last edited by WineCountryUA; Jan 31, 2018 at 2:36 pm Reason: merging consecutive posts by same member
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Old Jan 31, 2018, 2:19 pm
  #109  
 
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Originally Posted by chrisl137
This is consistent with my experience - all my tickets for work are booked through an in house (contract) TA, and we have a preferred carrier deal with UA. The agents at the TA use their own credit cards, so the original payment isn't in my name, either. I routinely have gone in on the UA website and changed my own tickets without any ill effects - there were maybe three years recently when I never flew an itinerary as originally booked, and few, if any were booked more than a week out, some even booked while I drove to the airport and then I changed the return on the UA site when I figured out when I really needed to come back. I'm not sure about the T-48 business from another comment - I suspect I've made my own changes further out than that with no problems. I think the only times I ever had to actually talk to a TA after booking were due to wrong hotel reservations and I think to unwind upgrades (both paid and CPU) when it turned out I needed to change my flight after checking in. Nobody has ever made a peep about changing a TA reservation on the UA site. I've also occasionally (but infrequently) had coworkers call and change my flight when there were multiples of us traveling on the same flights and were finished early and flying back together. Normally everybody books independently based on their schedule and preferred airports. This is all SOP for how I travel, and if UA had to track down me and the TA to make a change, that could be a problem - if I were to send an email requesting a change be made while I'm working in a location with no cell reception, it could be very difficult for them to confirm my change.

The TA was in the wrong for the unilateral cancellation.
I can echo these sentiments. The Fortune-100 company I used to work for used Concur for all airfare purchases, and the tickets were paid for by AMEX Travel (I assume that counts as a Travel Agency?) I never called AMEX Travel to change my reservation...always dealt directly with United, and I never had a ticket canceled.
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Old Jan 31, 2018, 3:19 pm
  #110  
 
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Originally Posted by danielonn
How was the passenger allowed through security without a valid ticket? Was the ticket cancelled before or after the passeger cleared security? It makes me wonder if the TSA Boarding Pass scanner has a real time link with the airline computer reservation systems?
TSA Scanner is not that sophisticated. It will not real time check on ticket status. Nor should it, frankly. TSA has no interest whatsoever in sorting out ticketing issues, nor are they equipped to do so.
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Old Feb 1, 2018, 3:33 pm
  #111  
 
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Originally Posted by chavala


The Jeff Edwards article is appalling. The “Nobody flies for free” is still in the headline and the article is still on the front page of FT. Who is this guy — not a real journalist?
Flyertalk and the blogs are Social Media and therefore not subject to the usual standards of "journalism." Believe at your own risk.
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Old Feb 1, 2018, 5:30 pm
  #112  
 
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Since some people can't get past paragraph 3 of an article the onus in journalism is on the author and editor to not leave any wrong impressions early on. This isn't a drama. The last sentence of paragraph 3 is as follows:

The gate agent told her that her reservation had been canceled. Traveler Help Desk, the online agency that sold the ticket, had rescinded it because the landlord made a change directly through United — even though United had assured the landlord that it was not a problem to do so.



It could easily as read as follows with no discussion of being "assured" by United (which is a throwaway to put some blame on United early and then lead to the GA actions):

The gate agent told her that her reservation has been canceled. The landlord had bought the ticket from an online agency, Traveler Help Desk, and made a legal ticket change with United. However, Traveler Help Desk then rescinded the ticket with no documented warning to the landlord even though the change did not affect them financially.
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Old Feb 1, 2018, 7:14 pm
  #113  
 
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First Im having a real hard time understanding the OTAs logic/reaction. I mean 99.9% of my travel is booked directly with UA but I have one charity client that insists on booking through their TA, and when I do something like apply an RPU/GPU that clears I get an few emails notifying me about a schedule change and asking me to confirm that the new flights (actually the same flight with a new booking class) are acceptable. Without fail, I tell them that its a cleared upgrade and certainly OK, they act confused about upgrades, and resync/revalidate the ticket and all is well with the world.

Originally Posted by docbert
What would you have them do?

They can't just let the passenger board without a ticket. They won't be on the manifest, and that breaks all sorts of laws.

I'm presuming a GA can't just create a new ticket/coupon for free to get them onto the flight. I'm sure someone (supervisor?) can, but odds are there wasn't one there (especially at an out-station like COS).
From my understanding of SHARES, pretty much any agent who knows what theyre doing -COULD- do this, but the chances of Internal Security and/or Revenue Management catching it and it ending with a termination are very high. At the dawn of the PSS integration post-merger when none of the pmUA agents really knew what they were doing in SHARES I said something about what if you try... and the agent said Oh, you know SHARES? Do you want to just do it? And spun the monitor and keyboard around to face me.

I declined because there was no way I saw that ending well (plus while I know some SHARES details theres no way Im fully competent) but I mentioned it to a friend who at the time worked for UA and came from CO and he asked why I didnt use the opportunity to book myself a RTW ticket in J...

I also wonder how many fontline agents, even if they have the technical capability, would know how to do it. I still remember the last time I tried buying a ticket at a (hub) airport it was going to be a fulll-fare walkup anyway, so the $25 or whatever was completely inconsequential when the agent said The ticket counter is not the place to buy a ticket, you need to either call or do it online...
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Old Feb 6, 2018, 4:21 pm
  #114  
 
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Originally Posted by luv2ctheworld
I don't believe the majority here is blaming the GA for doing their job. What is unfortunate is that the GA did not take this as an opportunity to help assist the traveler in distress.

The examples I cited previously all required employee(s) to go above and beyond what is considered their normal job requirements.

While none of us were there to witness the encounter, many of us feel that the perfunctory effort made by the GA was a missed opportunity by the GA (and United) to show compassion and out of the box thinking that would have at least given a more positive spin to this.
An interesting development at UA, which may have potentially been able to mitigate the issue experienced by the passenger had this been indoctrinated into employees earlier (not saying it would have turned out differently, but just maybe).
https://www.bizjournals.com/chicago/...st-caring.html
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Old Feb 6, 2018, 7:25 pm
  #115  
 
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Originally Posted by lincolnjkc
The ticket counter is not the place to buy a ticket, you need to either call or do it online...
Originally Posted by Dr. Strangelove
You can't fight in here, this is the war rooom!
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Old Feb 6, 2018, 7:38 pm
  #116  
 
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Originally Posted by luv2ctheworld
An interesting development at UA, which may have potentially been able to mitigate the issue experienced by the passenger had this been indoctrinated into employees earlier (not saying it would have turned out differently, but just maybe).
https://www.bizjournals.com/chicago/...st-caring.html
Meh, UA's been talking about being the friendly skies for years. It's just talk, nothing changes
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Old Feb 16, 2018, 10:00 am
  #117  
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Originally Posted by docbert
Sure, but they were - according to the article - cheaper than other places to buy the ticket. Which in itself is interesting...
This comment raises a question in my mind about whether this "travel agent" is really a mileage broker.

Originally Posted by kss5555
The link doesn't work for me, so I'm going to try the trick of quoting it.

Originally Posted by GrayAnderson
So, a serious question: Could UA (realistically) restrict what can be done externally with a ticket, as a matter of policy, once a passenger has boarded (well, been "scanned in")? Basically, could they have the system set up so that only the pax (or someone in their party) or the gate agents at the departing airport can change a ticket at that stage? It seems like allowing an external cancellation after that point effectively violates the UA policy of not kicking someone off after they've boarded.

Setting that aside, I think UA might want to consider dropping a brick on the OTA in question. This isn't Expedia or Orbitz, so it might be worth UA's while to come out and "fire" them and to restrict what a third-party seller can use as a claim for a fraudulent ticket purchase (e.g. "an SDC or SDS change is, all else being equal, not considered suspicious by United and we will not consider a cancellation request on this basis to be valid").

FWIW, the blurb on Google about the company in question: " 24*7 Online support help desk for travelers looking for customer support for travel related quires, airline contact numbers, air travel reservation query, flight status and more". Bold is mine. Yes, that's "quires", not "queries"...boy, does that inspire confidence.

But I'll also agree that this would have been a case where some quick thinking on the part of the gate agent would have helped and should have been rewarded.
If someone is using a travel agent, they shouldn't need telephone contact numbers for airlines.

Originally Posted by cjermain
I may be misreading the posts, but I don't think anyone has suggested that the GA just unilaterally let her fly.



This situation was quite unique in that they were asking someone who boarded with a valid ticket to deplane. Without the passenger's knowledge, the ticket was cancelled. This is a fantastic set of circumstances. I don't think any precedent would have been set.

I think the point is that a front line employee, upon encountering an extraordinary situation might consider various options to make things come out right. This could include a call to management to see what could be done. And if nothing could be done, or if the plane simply had to push back right away, some sympathy would have gone a long way. A good rule is: don't say things to a customer that won't look good printed in the paper tomorrow.

That said, I get the point that none of us were there, and some have suggested that the reporting is quite biased against UA. Plus almost everyone agrees that the real fault for the whole situation is with the agent. So I wouldn't judge UA too harshly.
The incident seems to violate UA's post-Dao policy of not removing passengers who have boarded. Moreover, IIRC the Dao flight had been delayed in order to permit those crew to fly, so UA does sometimes delay flights in order to permit some people to travel, although a better example using revenue passengers would be when flights are held for connecting customers coming from delayed flights.

Last edited by WineCountryUA; Feb 16, 2018 at 4:58 pm Reason: merging consecutive posts by same member
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Old Feb 16, 2018, 10:46 am
  #118  
 
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Originally Posted by MSPeconomist
If someone is using a travel agent, they shouldn't need telephone contact numbers for airlines.



The incident seems to violate UA's post-Dao policy of not removing passengers who have boarded. Moreover, IIRC the Dao flight had been delayed in order to permit those crew to fly, so UA does sometimes delay flights in order to permit some people to travel, although a better example using revenue passengers would be when flights are held for connecting customers coming from delayed flights.
It doesn't. She didn't have a valid ticket, therefore, she was no longer a passenger. Without a valid ticket, the passenger has never agreed to the same terms and conditions a normal passenger has, in regards to liability, among other things.
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Old Feb 16, 2018, 11:02 am
  #119  
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Originally Posted by MSPeconomist
If someone is using a travel agent, they shouldn't need telephone contact numbers for airlines.



The incident seems to violate UA's post-Dao policy of not removing passengers who have boarded. Moreover, IIRC the Dao flight had been delayed in order to permit those crew to fly, so UA does sometimes delay flights in order to permit some people to travel, although a better example using revenue passengers would be when flights are held for connecting customers coming from delayed flights.
lets get the policy straight because you only relayed half of it: UAs policy is not to remove passengers who have boarded except when safety/security is involved.

Yes, there is obviously a question of how the pax boarded and made it through security without a ticket, and thats a separate thing. But especially in this day and age, flying without a ticket is most definitely a security issue, and likely safety, too (wouldnt have been counted in weight and balance, what happens if something happens to the plane enroute and the pax isnt on manifest, etc.). This is not specific to UA - not too long ago, an ANA flight turned back to LAX after four hours in the air because of a pax onboard that wasnt on that flight.

Im actually not sure why people keep mentioning Dao in this thread - that was a completely different situation with different circumstances. I dont mean to sound unsympathetic to the pax here - its a really crappy situation that certainly wasnt their fault. But comparing to Dao is a bit much. And asking the tens of other pax onboard, many of whom likely had their own connections to make, while they sorted out ticketing for 1 which, to be fair may have taken a few minutes, or may have taken much, much longer, isnt really the answer either. Deciding to hold a plane happens sometimes (and is decided by ops, by the way, not a GA), but I dont know if Ive heard of it happening for untickefed pax.
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Old Feb 16, 2018, 1:35 pm
  #120  
Ari
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For what its worth, I bought a walk-up ticket at the gate on UA before in FLL after missing an AA flight. This is when they had gates right across from each other (I think they are in different terminals now). The gate agent didn't seem phased and seemed happy to sell me the ticket; she just asked that I wait until the boarding process was over so she wasn't distracted, took 3 minutes to sell me the walk-up fare, boarded me, closed out the flight and closed the door. Granted, I was PassPlus Assured at the time, so that may have helped motivate her, but I didn't ask her to mess around with issuing a PASSA ticket as that takes a while (and was more expensive than the walk-up fare anyway), so I just put it on a credit card. Was easy and done.

Those who say gates/airports are no place to buy tickets are just 'plane' wrong. It is fine as long as the agent has 3 minutes to spare.
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