Let’s call this Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Disappearing Award Ticket. Perhaps, with our collective deductive reasoning, we can get to the bottom of this.
An Award Expert client was traveling from San Francisco to Milan with her husband. We had arranged tickets for them on SWISS via Zurich in business class using United miles. Each used miles from their own account, so they were on separate reservations.
As always, we babysit award reservations after they are confirmed to ensure they are ticketed correctly. Sometimes glitches occur, especially when dealing with partner reservations. Here, though, everything looked good. Ticket numbers were assigned, seats were reserved, and both reservations pulled up just fine on the SWISS website.
We even checked the reservation seven days before departure, just to ensure everything was still intact and there were no unreported schedule changes. Everything showed HK (confirmed).
Departure day arrived and my clients showed up at the airport. While the husband had no trouble checking in, his wife was told she had no ticket.
After back and forth on the phone between the SWISS agent at SFO and United, she was offered a seat on the flight…in ECONOMY CLASS.
She took it. Well…her husband did…
Sadly, they e-mailed me after they arrived in Milan. Not a lot we can do at that point.
I honestly don’t know what went wrong. Was the problem on United’s end? Was it on SWISS’s end? Could it really be a ticketing issue or did SWISS just need the seat and choose to “bump” her in a way that would shield them from liability?
The key would have been to attempt to pull up the ticket at the counter. Could it really have just dissapeared suddenly? Since it was a one-way reservation, I was unable to pull up the reservation a couple days later when I received her email.
What I Would Have Done
Had this happened to me, I may have ended up with a similar outcome…but not for the reason you may expect.
I would have called United Airlines myself and explained the issue. If United was unable to resolve the issue with SWISS, I would have asked to have been rebooked on United flight to Milan the following day. That’s standard.
But if I had to be in Milan the following afternoon, like my clients, I likely would have ended up in economy class. The SWISS flight from SFO departs later in the evening, with only the Lufthansa flight to Munich departing after. There really wasn’t time to find a business class solution and still arrive on the date planned.
Make no mistake, I would have asked for the Station Manager and probed to ensure there were no overbook or HON upgrade shenanigans going on. But there’s not a lot you can do if you are stonewalled.
To avoid totally unexpected issues like this, try to check-in 24 hours before departure. Not all airlines permit this on international trips, but SWISS does. Perhaps the problem could have been avoided by checking the night before.
CONCLUSION
Nothing like starting a vacation in economy class when you are expecting business class.
Sometimes totally unexpected ticketing glitches occur. When they do, your best tool is flexibility and calling the airline that ticketed reservation if the operating carrier refuses to help. But when time is of the essence, the solution is not always ideal.
What do you think happened to this reservation? Foul play on the part of SWISS, a glitch on the United side, or something else?
Certainly sounds like Swiss doing a Swiss. How much longer until you update us on your shenanigans with them?
Apparently, this is the reason why Aeroplan has stopped issuing SWISS awards because people are showing up at the airport and there is no record of their reservation.
So, what about your update on Swiss and first class ticket, how was it resolved. I am seeing if you are like other bloggers?
I’m guessing SWISS prioritizes partner award bookings at the top of the bump list for various scenarios. Being offered an economy seat means the booking was there the whole time and they likely downgraded her for an unknown reason. Certain groups of employees can authorize themselves to overbook a cabin and it’s also possible that an exec was on the flight and needed/wanted a seat at the last minute.
Well this really makes me feel nervous… My partner and I are flying on paid tickets in Swiss business in November. My parents
Are using their United miles for their business class ticket on the same itinerary (all miles from my dads UA account ). LAX-ZRH-AMS and back. My father has mobility issues which is why everyone is on the same itinerary and Cabin. Yikes.
I’m going to print out ticket numbers for all flights on the award tickets and even do screenshots! Thanks!
I had a similar issue after booking Swiss F award via Aeroplan (and being involuntarily downgraded to Biz).
The day before my flight I noticed my intra-Europe connection wasn’t confirmed (despite being previously confirmed) and Aeroplan told me Swiss just cancelled it for some reason. After about 20 mins on the phone, I was rebooked in Lufthansa Biz.
I would have made a bigger stink out of it, but since Aeroplan had previously refunded ALL my miles for the award back to Amex (instead of just the difference between first and business) I was trying to avoid raising attention to what was effectively a “free” transatlantic flight in business.
I thought (was hoping) this was an update on your Swiss First classs/Aeroplan drama.
I had a similar problem this past week flying on Delta with a Flying Blue award ticket. I had no problems making the award in June and picking my seat, which showed up on the Delta website immediately.
Fast forward to this past Monday, I went to check in on the KLM app, then in the Delta app and noticed that I had been moved from seat 1A to seat 13A. Delta showed me in Economy Comfort but with Delta One/Sky Priority privileges, including 2 free checked bags. I was in Belgium and called Flying Blue in Belgium, Delta in the US, and Flying Blue in North America. The response from Delta was that the computer automatically moved me, that it was an Air France ticket and that Delta could not help me. Flying Blue’s response was that the award ticketed and that FB had no control over the Delta seat map.
I got to the airport tuesday, no change. The Delta check-in counter could not help me and referred me first to Delta ticketing then Avias Travel, both of which were unable to help. Eventually I gave my boarding pass to the Delta ticketing counter, explained that the Delta app was showing 2 seats in Business open and that I should be in business. They eventually moved me back to a center aisle seat in business. Of course the plane went out with another empty business class seat. So strange.
I ended up dodging a bullet but it was extremely strange, and frustrating, that I was just bumped out of business class for no reason and received no explanation.
What ended up being the problem? Were the clients offered compensation?
I never found out the root of the problem.
Similar thing happened to me and my wife on a Lufthansa operated flight from Dulles to Frankfurt with miles from United. They could not find our reservations even though I had a ticket number for each of us. Lufthansa blamed United and United blamed Lufthansa. Since Lufthansa ticket counters are close to United , I informed both airlines that they could duke it out but we was getting on board the flight. Period. I honestly don’t know how it got resolved but we were given tickets and flew to FRA.
On the return, the same thing happened. We endued up with an Op Up to J after standing at the ticket counter for an hour , refusing to move until they resolved it.
could be data field discrepancies. swiss couldn’t find my miles & more award booking for anything in the world until i put in my first and middle name as one word — which seems to be how i’ve been stored in some airline database somewhere. then it popped right up. literalists.
Did the clients have paper copies of their reservation/booking confirmation/e-ticket receipt showing the e-ticket number with them at the time of check-in? I keep regular track of my award bookings. But I always print everything – even the credit card payment statement. If the client’s credit card was used to pay the UA fees/taxes for the award that’s a payment, a contract for that award ticket. Just disappearing a ticket and hope the passenger doesn’t inquire doesn’t cut it. This should be followed up with UA and LX. Always print out your reservation and payment information and take it with you. Trust no one.
How shady. Completely shady.
Coming from SWISS, I’d say you are probably right.
As one who has considered using an award booking service, what does your company do for the clients when something like this happens?
Had she contacted us from the airport, we would have called United on her behalf to work out a solution. But considering she had to be in Milan the next afternoon and it was 7pm, there may not have been viable alternate business class options.
Did they receive some sort of reimbursement of miles for this due to the downgrade to Economy?
She received the difference between business (70K) and economy (30K) back into her account, but that’s hardly compensation…who wants to waste 30K miles to fly economy class?
Swiss is a EU (sort of) commuter carrier, so should be bounded by EC261/2004? She should ask for the refund of 75% of costs. Not much better though.
Given that the husband’s reservation in J remained intact, and SWISS’s sordid history of shadiness, I’m smelling a bump that SWISS then attempted to cover up. If I had to speculate, probably either a HON member or company exec that needed to get on that flight.
Very Swiss. They’ve played “the boat is full” excuse before, as a country as well as an airline. In reality they’re only marginally better than Lufthansa …but far less trustworthy. I hope, but doubt, that they offered decent compensation.
No compensation offered from SWISS: “it was United’s fault”
In short, you just said: don’t bother with award ticket or even use travel consultant. Just paid the full fare of bussines class to avoid any mishap(s). Am I correct?
Ha! I couldn’t see that interpretation and in fact thought it was honest that Matthew said he prob wouldn’t have been able to have gained a better solution (in that particular Circumstance).
I know how the airlines work but if I didn’t I’d like the comfort of an expert knowing who and how to call to get a solution. Eg am I entitled to a business class Flight on another airline (including outside the alliance – I believe Lh offered Matthew a ba Flight Home from Munich last month?)
Being paid doesn’t mean you can’t get bumped or screwed.
Hmmpft quit it with asslicking Matthew…. he understood my question. You didn’t. Pity.
@James: Not at all. For example, read this–
https://liveandletsfly.boardingarea.com/2014/04/02/forcing-lufthansa-into-submission-over-cancelled-flight/
Thanks for the link. Interesting.
Makes me wonder if there is a provision in these alliance agreements between airlines allowing them to prioritize their full fare first class customers or senior people. Regardless this experience shows that Swiss does it anyway and they don’t care. Their “partner” – in this case UA – is left to deal with what Swiss they have deemed a “lowly award flyer”.
SWISS … this just happened to part of our party flying to DAR from SFO. Rather than managing a downgrade in the standard way, SWISS completely canceled one of the tickets. United GS caught them in their lie, and I checked at T-24 and everything was good across all of our tickets, but couldn’t check in due to Tanzania doc check. In the end, we had one of our party in Y because the flight was totally oversold. They reinstated the ticket in J for the second segment ZRH-DAR.
This sort of interaction between UA and LH is annoying. I had recently noticed on a paid ticket (but upgraded on international legs with certs) that was AAA-BBB on UA, then BBB-CCC on LH, and then CCC-AAA on UA, that though BBB-CCC was still showing in my reservation on ua.com, it had disappeared from the reservation when I looked it up on the LH website. I was planning to call in about it (no rush since it is not till November), when I got an email from UA showing it was reticketed.
I went to LH.com, and the BBB-CCC leg on UA has reappeared. There are slightly different times, which might have something to do with it. However, the AAA-BBB initial leg is now missing on LH.com, though showing up on UA.com. I guess I will wait a while to see if the systems resolve this.
Any chance of your client filing an EU 261 compensation claim with Swiss due to downgrade ? Not sure how Swiss is with EU 261 claims or if applicable in this downgrade case .
Ironically I am in a similar situation right now trying to manage my parents in laws flights from PVG to ORD. They were booked on a QNTAS award from SYD-HKG-PVG-ORD and the HKG PVG leg was delayed and they missed the final leg (all in business class).
Airport staff were useless and I rang Qantas to get them on the american flight later that day (that had PLENTY() of revenues seats. Instead they are rebooked into China Eastern in two days/!!?? Qantas says they can pay MORE points and fly american to LA, then on to Ord on their own dime?!! What is going on???
It seems that unless you are loud and forceful at airlines you dont get anywhere.
This happened to me on a TK ticket using UA miles. Tickets were issued, miles withdrawn, even verified the ticket numbers with TK. I had seats assigned in J and all. Fast forward a few weeks later (about 1 month prior to departure)…I happened to call TK because I wanted to change seats. It was at that point that I found out that 2 weeks prior (which was 2 weeks after the ticket was issued), the already issued tickets were cancelled. TK claimed that it cancelled because UA had not provided a confirmation of some sort and referred me to UA. UA claimed that the reservation cancelled due to the flight was no longer in operation (this was not true). Long story short, after about 2.5 hours on the phone and much protesting, we did eventually get J seats, but on UA–TK availability was long gone, as was availability on most other *A carriers.
Bottom line…I don’t think it’s a Swiss problem, I think it may be a UA problem.
well, this makes me quite nervous, planning my honeymoon with UA miles, probably booking via SWISS since theyre the only ones that offer biz/first saver awards (280k RT vs 600k RT). just reminded me of the time that my wife and I were on a UA flight where they bumped her off of an overbooked flight, but offered me first class.. same reservation, both on reward tickets..