LondonElite

emcampbe

entrada

Thanks for the suggestion. I am on with UA customer service and they are calling AC for me. I read the UA agent your comment and she replied that yes, this is a known issue with AC and that she is on hold with AC now to do this.

goodeats21

I have an award itin with an AC segment for a trip in Jan. If the AC segment still shows up on my reservation on United.com, is there any other step needed to keep this together?

entrada

In my case I have checked daily on AC and UA web sites using the respective record locater numbers. And when the flight was dropped it was missing on both sites.

entrada

Just a note to say that the AC Twitter team handled my requests to add an e-mail address and pre-check number to a reservation ticketed by UA within minutes of sending the DM. I think DM is the best way to reach AC for which hold times on the phone can be in excess of 30 mins.

InHouseCounsel

Mountain Trader

cliffw

On April 20th, I used united miles to book a one way trip to China for my daughter. The complete trip will be flown through United partner: Air Canada. The ticket was confirmed with a record number, mileage deduction from my account and a small charge on my credit card for misc fees. I also selected seats for my daughter. Yesterday, April 24th, I logged into my United MileagePlus account to check another reservation and was unable to find the reservation I booked 4 days ago. After a few searches, I found the record locator was under "cancelled" status. I was shocked since 1) I never cancelled; 2) United never notified me that the confirmed ticket was cancelled; They never refund the money, nor the miles. Under the cancelled ticket status: it states this ticket can be used for future flight; 3) This one way award ticket was first leg of a lengthy trip which include 3 other separate one way tickets booked on United.

I instantly called united reservation line. After 10 minutes waiting, the service rep checked the status and informed me that the cancellation was done by Air Canada. The reason is that once Air Canada has more paying customers, they would cancel booked award ticket. I can't believe what I heard of cancelling a booked ticket for the sake of making more money. A booked ticket is a contract, but Air Canada is willing to cancel at will. Even ironically, on United web site that I checked, I can still book the same flight with the same number of miles. Plus, the chosen flight has over 50% of empty seats.

The service rep transferred me to the premier desk saying they probably can help me better. After another few minutes wait, United premier service rep answered the call, then discussed the case with Air Canada and reinstated my award ticket.

Admittedly I am very grateful to the two United service reps who helped me resolve this. But I am still wondering: 1) Can airlines arbitrarily cancel award tickets just for the sake of revenue purposes? This is saying, hey if I get another customer willing to pay more, I will cancel your confirmed ticket. 2) Why does United not notify me of the award ticket cancellation? This will screw up people at the last minutes at airport. 3) Is there any way to protect flyer rights? In this case, my daughter's e 4 leg trip would be a disaster if I did not check and she only discover her ticket cancelled at the airport.

jsloan

Welcome to FlyerTalk!
No, it isn't. The reason is that United's and AC's systems haven't been talking properly to one another recently.

You are correct not to believe this, and the fact that the flight is still available pretty much proves it.

There is one airline that is notorious for doing this -- Air China. The ticketing carrier -- United -- is responsible to get you to your destination, but there are a couple of large caveats -- they reserve the right to give you a full refund if they are unable to accommodate you. It's not a problem with any other United partner, including Air Canada.

UA is pretty terrible at this. They may eventually have notified you, but there's no way to tell.

You did protect your rights -- you got your ticket reinstated.

If your daughter was put back onto the Air Canada flight: you need to call Air Canada. Make sure that they have the ticket number in their records, because what actually happened is that United never transmitted that information to them, and Air Canada cancelled the reservation because they didn't think it had been ticketed. If they do not have the ticket number, this will happen again. You can find the ticket number by viewing your receipt on the website.

Often1

I am glad that it worked out. But, do not believe everything you are told. The first UA agent may have erroneously blamed AC for the cancellation and even if AC did cancel the ticket, it is unlikely that it did so to sell the seat for cash and even more unlikely that if it did so, that it would tell UA that it had done so. Making this even more unlikely is that the flight is only loaded to 50%. Simply put, AC could sell more seats without cancelling the daughter's ticket.

How to avoid this?

There is no substitute for regularly checking e-tickets. Without laying blame, screwups occur. That is a fact of life. Sometimes they are easily fixed, as OP's problem was. But, on other occasions, there is no fix because there are no seats to be had. Should this need to occur in 2019? No, but it does.

You should immediately verify that AC shows that your daughter is both ticketed and confirmed. As the operating carrier, AC will decide who gets on the aircraft and who does not. If AC does not show your daughter as both ticketed and confirmed, then get back on the phone with AC, UA and perhaps a 3-way call if necessary. Once you have verified everything, keep verifying.

Hipplewm

OK, lets start with your assumptions
PNR - record Locator - doesn't mean you have a ticket
Miles removed - doesn't mean you have a ticket
Payment accepted - doesn't mean you have a ticket
Ticket Number - means you have a ticket

Until you get your ticket number (starts with 016) all you have is a reservation, and until you get the ticket number you need to watch it like a hawk as evidenced by the thread about ghost tickets and cancels etc

Yes, it is all semantics and NO, we as consumers shouldn't have to deal with this ........, but we pretty much have to every day or we will get stuck somewhere.

rufflesinc

If the partner won't play ball or canceled flights, you can ask UA to force open award space on their own flights in the same cabin, even on a different routing to get you to destination.

jsloan

That's correct, and if you're traveling to a destination with a lot of flights, that can be the way to go (although you may still end up with a significant delay at your destination depending upon schedules). And, if the flights are full...

The bigger problem comes up when you're traveling to a destination that's only served by a limited number of flights.

cliffw

Actually in this case, I do have a record locator and ticket number starting with 016 emailed to me. But the ticket was still cancelled.