avek00

About ten days ago, I spoke with a UA MP Supervisor and booked a Star J award to South Asia using the following routing:

ATL-UA-IAD-UA-JFK-UA-LAX-SQ-SIN-SQ-BKK-LH-SGN

The routing was sent to the Quality Control Desk, and no problems were noted in the record. Over the course of the ten days, I spoke to numerous UA personnel (incl. phone reps., their supes. and even directly with a QC rep. on one occasion) regarding fairly minor changes and other incidentals regarding my record, with no one mentioning anything untoward about the itinerary.

Yesterday, I went to the airport to ticket this itinerary, and of course the airport CSR contacts the International Rate Desk, as the pricing shell had not been built for this record. The Rate Desk rep. was appalled that such an egregious violation of the routing rules occurred on this ticket - apparently, the supe. should not have used more than 4 segments total to get me to SGN. Even worse, she said, was that the error was not picked up by the:

11 phone reps.;
3 supervisors (in both ORD and IAD); and
4 Quality Control representatives who worked on my reservation at one point or another.

She said that her supervisor was livid about this blatant violation of the Star rotuing rules, as well as the fact that no one seemed to pick up on it, and that everyone involved would be talked to about it. To her credit, she was able to get a seat opened up for me on a IAD-LAX 777 in C that I was looking to get at some point in the future in order to clean up the routing.

The moral of the story: Don't presume that just because a supervisor booked your reservation, and Quality Control has reviewed it multiple times, that your reservation is "legit".

[This message has been edited by avek00 (edited 08-29-2003).]

SEA_Tigger

Perhaps the Rate Desk Sup is the one in the wrong and, in fact, the routing is valid?

[This message has been edited by SEA_Tigger (edited 08-29-2003).]

avek00

Even if that is the case, the rate desk is the final authority on whether or not a routing is legit, so if the supe. says it's illegal, then it's illegal, period.


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Continental Airlines - One airline CAN make a difference.

ScottC

I might be mistaken but this looks like a perfectly valid routing to me... Unless of course some segemtns are >24 hours??

LastClass

Ohhhh, this one is going to be fun....

avek00

No long stopovers or anything. The itinerary DOES flow logically and everyhting, but I can understand the RD's argument that it is "lengthy" segmentwise.

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Continental Airlines - One airline CAN make a difference.

avek00

Fun? It's actually kinda scary that pretty much every step in the food chain missed the problem with the booking, ESPECIALLY the Quality Control people.


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Continental Airlines - One airline CAN make a difference.

tods27

Wow... it almost seems like Avek is agreeing with posts from Glen regarding the Rate Desk cancelling itineraries!

avek00

Again, the problem is that the rate desk should have never had to deal with it -- it should have stopped at the QC level.


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Continental Airlines - One airline CAN make a difference.

B747-437B

IIRC, avek00 very rarely disagrees with ozstamps. It's usually the other way around.

tods27

After taking a quick look at this, I would not think that the number of segments is truly a problem. The agent may have been referring to the "most direct routing" rule. I'm also pretty sure that flying to BKK and then back to SGN would be considered "backtracking" which is specifically prohibited by the *A award chart (and also could be considerd part of the "most direct routing").

Edited to add that I agree that this should not have gotten to the rate desk, but that is what the rate desk is there for; to be the final quality check on use of miles for awards. You can argue that they should not need the rate desk, but don't say that their QC is bad, as they did catch this prior to your ticketing as part of the QC process.

[This message has been edited by tods27 (edited 08-29-2003).]

JD3UnitedPE

avek00 - why do you care if UA Quality Control is a Farce?

“We have a pool and a pond. A pond would be good for you.”

B747-437B

If you read the first post on this thread, you would probably have your answer.

avek00

FWIW, the problem was not so much with the SIN-BKK-SGN as it was with the ATL-IAD-JFK-LAX part.



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Continental Airlines - One airline CAN make a difference.

Jim Phillips

Let's just say that I believe that good things happen to good people.

You know, that karma thing.