Airlines are notorious for making changes. Sometimes they are waiting on delivery of a new aircraft, or an equipment swap changes capacity on a route. Other times the operating carrier is Thai Airways, in which case good luck.
Continue reading: How To Be Your Own Liaison
Share your questions, experiences, and thoughts below.
i may have unwittingly had the help of an alliance liason officer. Last year was travelling back from VCE to SFO and lookimg for LH F to SFO. None existed, but was available theough Daen and SEA. i asked the UA rep about whether LH space might open up in LH, as I was leaving for the airport. she said hold the line, a few minutes later she reported thst LH had now made a seat available. perhaps was good timing but I was of the impression UA had contacted LH and LH modified their availability. i was grateful all round.
a little OT, but which F seat on Qantas A380 would you recomment for a solo traveler?
thank you.
@ Lantean -- 2A, 3A, or 4A. The center seats share the right aisle, so I always prefer sitting on the left side if possible.
Lucky, this is a very helpful post! Thank you! (knock on wood) but I've never had to change an award ticket. However, I recall reading a blog post from Rocky at upgrd.com last week about his experience on changing an award ticket on US Airways that may help your readers as well.
I dont 'know the maximum permitted mileage for your client's flight but in case it was over the mpm, the likelihood of finding a US airways agent to change that flight without making any fuss is tough! Here's Rocky's blog post:
http://upgrd.com/blogs/doublewidesfly/us-airways-denies-my-award-trip-change-request-your-initial-routing-is-illegal.html
While not a schedule change, per se, we did work with 2 INCREDIBLE liaisons with Cathay Pacific (CX) and Alaska Airlines (AS) in early 2012.
Some here will recall that in February of that year, CX went through a major IT overhaul. This affected award bookings and award space availability. Many of their partners - AA included, along with AS - could not see open space that was showing on CX's site.
There were four (4) of us traveling - 2 adults and 2 kids. We adults were already booked in First, while our sons were in business. However, we took a calculated risk after studying how CX released award space over the course of 2 years (releasing additional F inventory a week or so before the flight): we redeemed the full number of AS miles for an F award, as CX allowed waitlisting for those at the time, even though we had to manually call in if the miles opened up.
Sure enough, the CX F inventory opened two additional seats in both our outbound segments two days after their big IT switch. I could see them on CX/Asia Miles, but AS couldn't see them. After calling CX in Hong Kong and AS in Seattle in a plea that somehow airlines can actually talk with each other to find a solution, I managed to eventually hook up BOTH Liaisons. Both empathized and given that these are two of the best airlines in the world (IMHO), both went above and beyond to secure the two additional F seats. Again, nothing outside of their published rules was done, and our bet paid off.
Liaisons are fantastic people, especially when they talk with each other and share a common purpose toward customer satisfaction!
@Lucky, how do you handle it when the both the issuing airline and partner have the same travel advisory for an award? USDM won't touch my AA routing without me incurring a change fee, I've tried HUACA 3 times this past weekend, they were all firm (even after a 1.5 hour schedule change).
@ Chris -- Sorry, what kind of a travel advisory are you talking about? Like, travel in the very near future with a weather advisory, or?
I've actually had success with getting the partner airline to do an exchange and re-ticket on their own stock when things got dodgy. Flying on a BMI issued ticket on a weekend (viz. BMI call center closed), Egyptair rescheduled me resulting in a misconnection in Cairo and no onward flight to Accra for 3 days. Managed to convince Egyptair staff to pull the BMI ticket and reissue it on Egyptair stock for flights via Istanbul on TK metal instead. And to add icing on the cake, they rebooked in revenue Biz class so the miles posted as well! 🙂
When dealing with US, I always have a backup list of flights for each segment. When a strike at CDG canceled my LH flight to connect in FRA to PHL last Nov, I called US who told me to call LH (which I knew wasn't right) who sent me back to US. I had to ask for a supervisor to get me on the direct US flight CDG-PHL as I saw there were at least six open seats in Envoy. The first agent argued that my award ticket wouldn't get me a seat because the points were more then I redeemed on the partner award (what?).
Here I was having just landed from a long day in BKK stuck at airport due to protests only to have no flight home and the agent arguing with me and telling me incorrect info. Thankfully, I hung up, called again and asked for a supervisor was able to work with me on the direct flight home. It should have been a simple change but took a few international calls and about two hours to get right
A great outcome. I'm sure your client is very pleased with the above and beyond service you and your team provided!
The real lesson here is the Qantas knew what their agreement with the passenger required them to do and was willing to do it whereas USAir was not.
A ticket is a ticket is a ticket. A ticket paid for with miles treated identically to one paid for with currency under the passengers agreement with the airline. That USAir simply refused to do what they obligated themselves to do whereas Qantas was happy to merely highlights the absurd situation we have in which the US based airlines have managed to snow most everyone into believing that they are permitted to create two classes of passengers when in fact no such right exists.
Every airline obligates itself under it's CoC's to carry a ticketed passenger according to a set of rules. In almost every one those rules require carrying the passenger in the same class of service even in the case of a schedule change. Where that is the case those rule apply identically to all tickets available to the general public regardless of how they are paid for unless the CoCs specifically say otherwise, which none do.
Would the liaison still work in a situation where the operating airline is no longer a partner? Specifically I have some US flights booked on United itinerary before US left Star Allaiance. Due to schedule changes on US Air side those flights are now ending up with impossible connection (flight B leaves before flight A arrives). There are no other options on star and US flights can't be booked anymore. Would I have better luck United opening some of their space or could liaison be of assistance with rebooking US flights?
@ Papa Smurf -- That's a sticky situation. There's not really a liaison that can help, since they're alliance specific. I might just try phoning United and seeing if they can open up space, and then three way in US Airways and see if they can reissue the ticket. Good luck!