I recently flew to Las Vegas for a vacation. The airline messed up my outgoing flight reservation (no fault of mine), and I missed my flight. When I called to get that straightened out, I found out that they had resold my reserved seat for my return flight as well, even though it was days away and I had still been charged for the seat.
The reasoning I got from the airline was that some round trip reservations cost less than one way reservations, so some people book round trips and only use half the ticket. My response was, 1) check your pricing methods and 2) I don’t care, I paid for that Goddam seat!
What is it that allows airlines to sell seats that have already been paid for months in advance? Shouldn’t I be able to (rediculous example) buy every seat on a flight and have the whole plane to myself if I want, without having them sell all my seats to other people?
The least they should have done is contact me to say that I’d be removed from my flight if I didn’t contact them back, or wait until I didn’t show up for my return flight, and then sell it standby. As it turned out, I had to pay an extra $80 to rebook for a flight I had ALREADY PAID FOR!
Can someone PLEASE let this unseasoned traveller know what goes on with (supposed) reservations?
Was this a major airlines? When you say that they messed up your reservations, when did you find this out? I mean did you get tickets weeks in advance and it was screwed up then or did you get the tickets the same day or the flight? Did you get paper tickets or e-tickets, electronic tickets that you had no verifying paperwork? Most major airlines will try to correct problems with reservations that are their fault with no extra cost to you, sometimes even booking you in better seats than you originally had, so I am wondering if there is anything about your circumstances that made the situation something they felt was partially your fault.
It was American Airlines, which doesn’t provide tickets until you show up at the gate. They do send a confirmation with your flight number. But they use the same flight number over and over again. So when I checked flight 12254, I saw that it was leaving on the day I wanted, Thursday. It doesn’t say that I was msitakenly confirmed for flight 12254 on TUESDAY. So in their eyes, I had booked for the wrong day.
I guess I could have called and confirmed the exact day, but I shouldn’t have had to.
And my biggest problem wasn’t that they messed up on my outgoing flight, but that they cancelled my return flight and sold the seat I had paid for. If I had missed my flight because of an emergency, and flown down the next day, I still would have had to buy another flight back. Unless I didn’t show up an hour before the return flight, that seat should have been mine.
I’ll happily rant along with you about AA’s ticketing incompetence.
My dad works for them, so I get to fly “non-revenue,” which means I can fly for free whenever there’s an empty seat on the plane. I live in Portland, OR, and they have only 4 flights a day in and out of here, and only to Dallas/Fort Worth (their main hub). These flights are always pretty full, and around peak travel times are basically impossible to get on standby.
So when I flew home this christmas my dad bought me a round-trip ticket from here to Cleveland and back, both ways via DFW. After christmas I went down to Atlanta to visit some friends, and thought it would be easier to fly to DFW from there non-rev and then use the paid ticket from DFW to Portland. I’m quite aware of their practice of cancelling an entire itinerary if you miss one flight, so I call them up a week ahead of time and ask if it’s OK to skip the Cleveland->DFW flight but still use the DFW->Portland flight. They say that’s fine, they’ll cancel my reservation out of Cleveland and everything should be all set up when I get to DFW.
So I make my flight out of Atlanta, and when I get to DFW I head to the ticket counter to get my boarding pass. The woman at the ticket counter (who is a real bitch) says “That will be $75, please.” When I called them I specifically asked whether I would be charged anything (I know their devious ways) and I was told no. So I tell ticket-counter-bitch this. She says that my flight out of Cleveland had not been cancelled, and furthermore if I had cancelled it that privilege would have cost me $150. Her implication that I was lying was not thinly veiled in the least. Fucking bastards.
So I immediately whip out my non-rev pass and ask her if there are any seats available. There were seats available, and I ended up getting a seat in first class.
But I digress. This woman was actually disappointed that I was able to get on the plane! Jesus fucking christ on a turntable where do they get these people?!
American Airlines brought up the butt-end of satisfied customers in a WSJ weekend article a few weeks ago.
This is sad, because they used to be great(I’m talking years ago).
I’ve done the only thing a P.O.'d customer can do…avoid 'em whenever possible. Last December it ment taking a commuter flight from America West and making connections in Phoenix.
I used to work for The SABRE Group, a subsidiary of AMR, the corporation that owns American Airlines, so I know about the nonrev bennies. But, even flying nearly for free was not worth the endless hassles the airline subjects you too. Paying for it is insane.
I’ve given up on American. I found a smaller airline - Frontier - that flies all the places I need to go, costs less, and the people who work there are actually friendly. I was amazed. I’d begun to think there was some sort of law against relaxed, happy, friendly airline workers.
But I digress. This woman was actually disappointed that I was able to get on the plane! Jesus fucking christ on a turntable where do they get these people?!
She must be the evil twin of the nice flight attendant that upgraded my friends. They were seated next to a woman who was whining about having been allocated an aisle seat when she’ d specifically reserved a window seat. Clearly she was trying to get herself an upgrade, thinking the old “squeaky wheel gets the oil” trick would get her up into business class.
Luckily for her seat mates, she got her window seat (in their vacated spot), and they moved ahead to business class. Hahaha.
It is actually quite simple, you bought a round trip ticket. Unless you take the outbound flight, the return portion of the flight is NO GOOD. From the airlines point of view (and you gotta admit they have a point) if you did not fly from A to B then you do not need to fly from B back to A. If you say but I could have driven to Vegas, sub London and New York for A and B. This is, as far as I can tell, a standard practice in the airline industry, and has been that way for just about forever.
So when you missed your reservation on Tuesday, the balance of the ticket became void and the seat is open for sale. Then when you showed up on Thursday, your previous seat had been sold, and you were SOL.
Now since this is the pit, what kind of idiot doesn’t even know what day they are leaving for Vegas? Don’t you think that maybe looking at your ticket (or e ticket recipt might have been in order?
I can honestly say I’ve never experienced any of this in my admittedly limited history of flight travel. Maybe it’s just cause I’ve always flown Southwest.
The last two trips I took were hassle-free, and with all honesty, they shouldn’t have been, entirely due to my flights of spontaniety.
First one was a Vegas trip and I wasn’t scheduled to leave Vegas to go back to Chicago till 8 PM that night. I decided to leave that morning instead, went to the airport, went up to the ticket counter and showed them my ticket, and asked if I could possibly be put on the next possible flight instead. They printed me a new ticket, and I had to wait maybe 2 hours (this was at about 7 AM on a Monday morning, no less). No charge, money never even entered the conversation.
Second trip I decided to stay a week longer in Dallas than my ticket was for. I turned back on the way to the airport (the things we do for love grin). I called and asked if I could move my flight to a week from today, they said sure and set me up with another flight.
Week goes by, I go up to the ticket counter with my week-old ticket, explain the situation and hand them my old ticket, she brings up my name, prints me up a new ticket, and I’m on my way to the gate. Again, no money is asked for at any point.
Now I know they can charge you any number of fees, but obviously they don’t always.
Or maybe I just happen to have a particularly travel-minded Fairy Godmother watching over me… shrug
Yes it is four years old but it was nice to see that the arguement never seemed to miss a beat. You could read the whole thread like it was a recent posting.
I’m actually glad this thread was resurrected, otherwise I’d have never seen it. I work for a major airline. I’m the cheery voice on the other end of the phone.
As Rick said, it’s very true that if you miss your flight from A to B (whether intentional or not) and we don’t hear from you within a couple hours of the scheduled departure, we assume you don’t need the return flight, from B to A, either. Our computer automatically does a seek-and-destroy and cancels these “no-shows.” Most tickets sold these days are nonrefundable, but for a fee they can be applied to another itinerary. That happens a LOT. You’d be surprised at the number of people who don’t even have the courtesy to call and cancel their reservation. My condolences to the original poster, but there’s no way to know whether your original flight was missed on purpose or by accident.
I also find it hard to believe that American does not even send out an itinerary card when a new reservation is booked. If it was booked online, you see the flights, times, date(s). If it was booked over the phone, the res agent should have reconfirmed the same info before purchase. At least have them fax or e-mail a copy of the itinerary for your own sanity.
Once an airplane leaves, any empty seats are lost revenue to the airline. There’s no recovery from that. Just be glad they’re not like concert tickets with no opportunity for changes.
As far as having sold “your seat,” well, chances are they got you on the same flight but not seated in the same location. You’re buying transportation not actual real estate on the plane. All of the seats get there at the same time.
Yeah, I was debating subscribing, or not, and as you can tell by my low post count I don’t usually contribute a whole lot. I was looking for a good reason. Sorry for resurrecting an old thread. Just grasping at straws for a good reason to stick around, and throwing my money at a community where I don’t have alot to say.
cough
Your ownself, what kind of idiot does not know the difference between the OP and second reply in this thread? :wally
Bottom line is ATTGuy showed up on the wrong day for his flight, either because he could not read a calendar or did not bother to read his e-mailed confirmation. My comment stands.
