Check your PNRs! AC Stealth Cancelling Segments
Apr 12, 2019, 1:59 am
#1
Original Poster
Join Date: Oct 2008
Location: SEA
Programs: DL Gold
Posts: 1,510
Award reservation cancelled with no notice
On Monday 4/8, I booked award travel (for July 8) using my UA/MileagePlus miles, for myself and 3 family members LHR-YVR-SEA using miles + cash. The flights were operated by Air Canada. I received a confirmation code and 4 emails with eticket #s , and was able to select seat assignments on Air Canada's website after the booking was completed.
I just checked my account and saw no existing reservation -- it does appear under the "Cancelled" heading! I never cancelled this flight; I have not received any phone calls/emails/other communication about a cancellation. My miles (120K of them) are still gone from my account and there has been no refund to my credit card of the $500+ cash I also spent.
Does anyone know what could have happened here? I've sent an email to customer service and will contact them by phone tomorrow, but wondering if this is a common experience. Have they not fixed what happened to Benjamin Jimenez? Glad I noticed before trying to check in for my return flight...
I just checked my account and saw no existing reservation -- it does appear under the "Cancelled" heading! I never cancelled this flight; I have not received any phone calls/emails/other communication about a cancellation. My miles (120K of them) are still gone from my account and there has been no refund to my credit card of the $500+ cash I also spent.
Does anyone know what could have happened here? I've sent an email to customer service and will contact them by phone tomorrow, but wondering if this is a common experience. Have they not fixed what happened to Benjamin Jimenez? Glad I noticed before trying to check in for my return flight...
Last edited by AquaDyne; Apr 12, 2019 at 2:08 am Reason: Clarify reservation canx, vs. the flight itself
Apr 12, 2019, 8:12 am
#3
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Assuming this was UA error, it should be easy for UA to open award space on its own metal to get you from LHR to SEA. Flying economy, I would look for a routing with TATL on the 763.
Apr 12, 2019, 9:11 am
#4
Join Date: May 2000
Location: Houston, TX, USA
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Posts: 7,970
That's consistent with a reservation being cancelled but not refunded. You will have to find out from them how/why your reservation got cancelled, but as far as it happening and not getting your miles/money back, that's just standard course of business. Lots of people do this on purpose: cancel a reservation without requesting a refund, with the intent of re-issuing the ticket later. The miles and money just sit on the cancelled ticket waiting to be reused or refunded within 1 year of original issue date. So that part of it is not a mystery.
Apr 12, 2019, 9:26 am
#5
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Completely guessing here - but was one (or both) of the AC segments cancelled by AC? Or perhaps had a schedule change which did something to cause this. You should have been notified eventually, at least. Not excusing that you weren’t yet - UA should always do this immediately.
id guess whatever caused this caused the reservation to be cancelled, with the miles/fees remaining in the PNR for you to use.
Id first check ACs site, to see if the flights you were booked on still exist at all in their schedule. Then, whatever you find out, give a call to UA and explain the situation. They’ll either allow you to refund all miles/payments, allow you to rebook on a partner combo that is still available as an award (AC, LH, etc.) or open up space if not available on an all-UA itinerary.
id guess whatever caused this caused the reservation to be cancelled, with the miles/fees remaining in the PNR for you to use.
Id first check ACs site, to see if the flights you were booked on still exist at all in their schedule. Then, whatever you find out, give a call to UA and explain the situation. They’ll either allow you to refund all miles/payments, allow you to rebook on a partner combo that is still available as an award (AC, LH, etc.) or open up space if not available on an all-UA itinerary.
Apr 12, 2019, 9:54 am
#6
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The first thing to do is to pick up the phone and to call UA. This could have happened for any number of reasons from the benign to the seriously problematic. But, it is not worth one second's worth of your speculation until you have details.
Apr 12, 2019, 10:50 am
#7
Join Date: Oct 2009
Programs: All of them, UA-Plat, 1MM*G
Posts: 881
I would also check out the status of this reservation with AC. UA should have given you the AC PNR, and you have e-ticket numbers. Call AC and find out what they see. It could be that everything is fine and their is just some glitch in the UA reporting systems.
Apr 17, 2019, 12:49 am
#8
Original Poster
Join Date: Oct 2008
Location: SEA
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Posts: 1,510
Thanks for the replies everyone. I did of course contact UA in parallel with posting here.
Twitter was the fastest response, followed by Facebook, and 2 days later, an email reply from the website form. Air Canada was blamed, some "temporary technical glitch" stated as the cause.
Twitter was the fastest response, followed by Facebook, and 2 days later, an email reply from the website form. Air Canada was blamed, some "temporary technical glitch" stated as the cause.
Apr 17, 2019, 1:05 am
#9
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Join Date: Aug 2015
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Thanks for the replies everyone. I did of course contact UA in parallel with posting here.
Twitter was the fastest response, followed by Facebook, and 2 days later, an email reply from the website form. Air Canada was blamed, some "temporary technical glitch" stated as the cause.
Twitter was the fastest response, followed by Facebook, and 2 days later, an email reply from the website form. Air Canada was blamed, some "temporary technical glitch" stated as the cause.
Apr 17, 2019, 1:12 am
#10
Join Date: Dec 2011
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Posts: 1,267
AC is having issue with UA issued award tickets, they can't see the ticket number so the system will cancel the seat reservation 48 hours after booking. The solution is to call AC and ask agent to manually link the ticket number to reservation .
This what I learned after AC cancelled my award rebooking twice and I finally decided to give them a call.
This what I learned after AC cancelled my award rebooking twice and I finally decided to give them a call.
Apr 17, 2019, 5:02 am
#11
Join Date: Sep 2013
Posts: 1,116
Thanks for the replies everyone. I did of course contact UA in parallel with posting here.
Twitter was the fastest response, followed by Facebook, and 2 days later, an email reply from the website form. Air Canada was blamed, some "temporary technical glitch" stated as the cause.
Twitter was the fastest response, followed by Facebook, and 2 days later, an email reply from the website form. Air Canada was blamed, some "temporary technical glitch" stated as the cause.
Apr 17, 2019, 5:08 am
#12
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Join Date: Aug 2015
Posts: 11,462
I'm not sure about that. I don't use twitter, but the response / resolution times some people report are faster than my normal phone call, and that's generally with no hold time.
Apr 17, 2019, 7:46 am
#13
Join Date: Sep 2014
Posts: 2,531
For non-status pax especially, waiting 30m on hold to be connected to an off-shore call center that doesn't understand my problem is a very frustrating experience.
Apr 19, 2019, 12:49 pm
#14
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Check your PNRs! AC Stealth Cancelling Segments
I booked the family to come in for Passover, and my Brother in law was checking in today, and told the segment was cancelled.
He's going to miss the seder tonight, the soonest they could get him here was tomorrow, (EWR-YYZ), as AC refused the reservation and was otherwise sold out as they cancelled two of their flights...
The UA agent said AC cancelled them for not having an associated ticket (there was of course, NO notification to me that these reservations were screwed up)
3 other separate reservations that were booked in the last 10 days or so, were affected by this, United re-instated them, including my mom, flying CLE-YYZ tomorrow, as I tried to OLCI... (even after UA "re-instated" the space).
I had to call AC, they *still* didn't have an e-ticket attached to the reservation, and AC manually attached the etickets to the other four pnrs and those would be screwed up too if I didn't waste a couple hours fixing it.
United: check your busted IT... maybe the variable pricing update messed up their ticketing engine?
if you've booked AC segments in the last couple weeks, double check your PNRs!
He's going to miss the seder tonight, the soonest they could get him here was tomorrow, (EWR-YYZ), as AC refused the reservation and was otherwise sold out as they cancelled two of their flights...
The UA agent said AC cancelled them for not having an associated ticket (there was of course, NO notification to me that these reservations were screwed up)
3 other separate reservations that were booked in the last 10 days or so, were affected by this, United re-instated them, including my mom, flying CLE-YYZ tomorrow, as I tried to OLCI... (even after UA "re-instated" the space).
I had to call AC, they *still* didn't have an e-ticket attached to the reservation, and AC manually attached the etickets to the other four pnrs and those would be screwed up too if I didn't waste a couple hours fixing it.
United: check your busted IT... maybe the variable pricing update messed up their ticketing engine?
if you've booked AC segments in the last couple weeks, double check your PNRs!
Apr 19, 2019, 1:27 pm
#15
Join Date: Apr 2012
Location: DTW/MBS
Programs: UA 1K, HHonors Diamond, Hyatt Globalist, Formerly Starbucks Gold
Posts: 3,525
This just happened to me.
I had a valid eticket from two days ago and now the reservation is showing as cancelled. On the phone with UA right now.
The worst part was that I was not notified at all. I've already booked other non-refundable travel associated with this, so I'm not too happy.
My reservation looked fine on Air Canada after I ticketed it. @entropy, did you have to call AC in addition to UA after they said everything was okay?
I was offered a refund but that's not going to roll with me. If I have a valid eTicket number, I should have grounds to push this, correct? My ticket was YYZ-YHZ, I've also asked for (a more expensive) all UA metal DTW-EWR-YHZ.
Also just wanted to say: this wouldn't happen if United would let me earn PQDs on parter tickets. That's why I booked these flights on United to begin with, despite there being no.
EDIT: Resolution - UA supervisor had to call AC supervisor to attach the ticket number. I think this is what entropy mentioned above.
I had a valid eticket from two days ago and now the reservation is showing as cancelled. On the phone with UA right now.
The worst part was that I was not notified at all. I've already booked other non-refundable travel associated with this, so I'm not too happy.
My reservation looked fine on Air Canada after I ticketed it. @entropy, did you have to call AC in addition to UA after they said everything was okay?
I was offered a refund but that's not going to roll with me. If I have a valid eTicket number, I should have grounds to push this, correct? My ticket was YYZ-YHZ, I've also asked for (a more expensive) all UA metal DTW-EWR-YHZ.
Also just wanted to say: this wouldn't happen if United would let me earn PQDs on parter tickets. That's why I booked these flights on United to begin with, despite there being no.
EDIT: Resolution - UA supervisor had to call AC supervisor to attach the ticket number. I think this is what entropy mentioned above.
Last edited by BThumme; Apr 19, 2019 at 1:56 pm