IAH-OIL-TRASH

Flying (or was flying) YVR-SFO-HNL in F next Friday. Apparently some bozo has my same name and DOB on the SFO- HNL leg and is traveling w/ a “Victoria” and is actually connecting in HNL to another island - not sure where couple is originating.

UA cancelled my reservation yesterday and agent I spoke to figured out what the issue was and put me back on my original flights - my original seat on a full 319 a/c, but I lost my 4L seat on a 777HD and now (or was) stuck in the middle.

Got a second cancellation notice a couple of hours ago and had to send a email to United. No cell service and messaging not working from here. Will try again in Ketchikan tomorrow.

I’m afraid I’ll lose my F seat to SF and move deeper into the middle seats of the HNL flight.

Agent said they (she and supervisor) put notes in reservation, but I guess they didn’t get read

ctownflyer

Wild. Maybe just use have the agent change your DoB to avoid another cancellation?

slippahs

The chances that you would have the same name and DOB as another passenger has got to be so small, maybe you should buy a lottery ticket. UA’s computers are so hyper aggressive at cancelling flights, I don’t think notes in the record will do anything.

mfirst

IAH-OIL-TRASH is a fairly common name, I'm surprised this hasn't happened to you before

-m

fumje

Can you get them to just cancel the other guy's flight? I think they owe it to you at this point. 😈

TerryK

Nothing get read as cancellation was done by computer.

Looks like UA computer cancels the PNR which was booked later. You should know enough to cancel IAH-OIL-TRASH-2's PNR. You can book your PNR afterward. IAH-OIL-TRASH-2 can call to reticket PNR but computer will cancel his now.

Seriously, UA needs to fix this problem. There are passengers with the same name/DoB on the same flight.

bmwe92fan

This makes zero sense -- PNR's are not generated based on DOB / name -- something else must be going on.... I don't believe that the UA duplicate reservation police are this sophisticated at all lol -- as it is so easy for them to see which account booked the reservation....

TerryK

UA system checks overlapping PNRs by name/DoB. I had PNR cancelled by UA even though they were different routing on adjacent dates with no duplicate flights. One of which did not have my MP number. They did have the same O/D.

Perhaps IAH-OIL-TRASH can try variations of name?

bmwe92fan

But they also know the account that booked them -- if you are right UA is dumber than most... Thank goodness my name isn't Michael Smith....

MatthewLAX

I recently got an email (auto-generated) warning me about overlapping flights and warning one would be canceled. I’ll see if I can find it and screenshot it here.

IAH-OIL-TRASH

I’m almost thinking he’s a GS

bmwe92fan

I get those too when I've got two potential business trips -- but I've assumed it is because they can see the account that booked it -- which is easy to do -- thus my doubt that UA itself could be doing this -- maybe they've hired a new "security" partner that doesn't get todays world?

IAH-OIL-TRASH

Once agent and supervisor looked at the reservation, they quickly concluded same name / date of birth on one segment caused the cancellation - so, yes, humans at UA can parse the IT folks’ failures. Looks like the process doesn’t look too deep into the available data. (Like I flew to the Pacific Northwest on the same reservation last Thursday and I might want to get home). But IT looks like it always tries to get the last laugh (by cancelling it twice). I do have a common name - shared by a tight end who played at the University of Hawaii about the same time I went there, and the King Of Pop (now you know).

Looks like UA allows their IT processes to auto-cancel reservations w/o making sure they aren’t duplicate. This is definitely a rare case, though.

Off topic - I did go to the Boeing facility yesterday north of Seattle. Couple of new AA an DL planes parked outside awaiting finishing touches. No UA livery in sight.

bmwe92fan

LOL -- still no excuse to screw you over! UA should be better than this! And they should restore your seats! In today's environment there is no excuse for this type of profiling -- I think you should point that out to them.... Especially since they definitely know the IP addresses and accounts that booked the tickets... You got screwed over by an automated process designed to save them a few dollars -- except when it goes wrong -- I think the world should know how UA treats its best customers -- and what they think of everyone else....

UA used to be number one for my spend -- but after years of what you've endured -- same as me -- I left -- but I still spend enough to make GS -- but honestly it means nothing now -- it used to be valuable -- but it's not any more to anyone that really travels for a living....

IAH-OIL-TRASH

I didn’t win lottery, but I did win the 3:30pm poker tournament aboard the Celebrity Solstice as I stewed about United’s action that I got notice of about 10 minutes before it started. The cards were better to me than United has been in the last 24 hours

Bad PR for United. All the players heard about it (not by their choice - as long as they had chips, they were stuck listening to me).