Award reticketing on partner airlines

[justinbrett]

There’s plenty of posts on the QF forum about QR schedule changes, and that resulting in tickets not being reissued and ultimately cancelled.

I’m now in the exact same situation on the VA side (flying SIN-DOH-AUH). Long haul leg was rescheduled requiring a new flight to AUH. Other than now being a terrible itinerary (layover has gone from 1:45 to 6:05), it also hasn’t been reticketed (new AUH has blank ticket number on CMT). It’s been about 4 days now.

Also I’ve heard absolutely nothing from VA, not a single email and their MMB page doesn’t even list the flight numbers. I can’t believe how terrible their site is for this.

The QR side is only slightly better, shows my new flights but no option to confirm changes like I’ve had on most other carriers, certainly no option to select alternatives.

Overall quite disappointed in the experience, and now wondering if I’ll lose my booking if VA doesn’t reticket. I’m not super stressed about it as it’s now a pretty ugly way to get from SIN to AUH. - I might even cancel and fly EK to DXB instead.

 

[MattA]

Be interested to hear what happens. I also have a QR award reticketing issue and currently not sure how worried I need to be...

I booked MEL-ADL-DOH-LHR with VA points back in October, for travel in May.

In December QR changed the times of ADL-DOH resulting in an illegal connection (< MCT), and I got an email telling me they had moved me to the following DOH-LHR departure. I assumed all was well -- Everything about the booking looks ok on the QR side, I can select seats etc and if I request an eticket it sends me the PDF with the correct flight details, everything says confirmed and there is an eticket number in the top-right.

However, if I go to MMB on the VA side it's showing both the old and new DOH-LHR flights (as if I'm going to do some kind of teleport/time travel scenario where I fly on to LHR and then loop back to DOH to fly there again).

I naively thought this was just some quirk of the VA MMB page but after reading some of the QF/QR threads on the weekend, I looked at Check My Trip, where I can see the correct flights but there's only an eticket number against ADL-DOH and nothing against DOH-LHR.

Also the eticket number is the same number as the original booking. Should a change like this have forced a reticketing to a new eticket number?

Last week there was another minor change to the flight times on the DOH-LHR leg. Again I got an email from QR about the change but nothing from VA.

I guess I'll have to brave the VA call centre, but I'm hesitant in case I get someone who stuffs up the booking (a la the QF / QR horror stories).

 

[justinbrett]

Be interested to hear what happens. I also have a QR award reticketing issue and currently not sure how worried I need to be...

I booked MEL-ADL-DOH-LHR with VA points back in October, for travel in May.

In December QR changed the times of ADL-DOH resulting in an illegal connection (< MCT), and I got an email telling me they had moved me to the following DOH-LHR departure. I assumed all was well -- Everything about the booking looks ok on the QR side, I can select seats etc and if I request an eticket it sends me the PDF with the correct flight details, everything says confirmed and there is an eticket number in the top-right.

However, if I go to MMB on the VA side it's showing both the old and new DOH-LHR flights (as if I'm going to do some kind of teleport/time travel scenario where I fly on to LHR and then loop back to DOH to fly there again).

I naively thought this was just some quirk of the VA MMB page but after reading some of the QF/QR threads on the weekend, I looked at Check My Trip, where I can see the correct flights but there's only an eticket number against ADL-DOH and nothing against DOH-LHR.

Also the eticket number is the same number as the original booking. Should a change like this have forced a reticketing to a new eticket number?

Last week there was another minor change to the flight times on the DOH-LHR leg. Again I got an email from QR about the change but nothing from VA.

I guess I'll have to brave the VA call centre, but I'm hesitant in case I get someone who stuffs up the booking (a la the QF / QR horror stories).

Wow, yeah sounds like you're in the exact same position - and that's been how many months without VA doing anything?

Sounds like the grass is no greener over here.

 

[MattA]

Wow, yeah sounds like you're in the exact same position - and that's been how many months without VA doing anything?

Sounds like the grass is no greener over here.

Yeah so two months since the major change and no action from VA. On the plus side at least my booking hasn't been unilaterally cancelled (yet). I'm going to have to call, I think.

Also I’ve heard absolutely nothing from VA, not a single email and their MMB page doesn’t even list the flight numbers. I can’t believe how terrible their site is for this.

You should be able to see the flight numbers in VA MMB. On desktop when you go into the booking click on the box under the overall flight times where it says "x stops" and it will pop up all the flight sectors. If you use the mobile app (on iOS at least) they just show up in a list when you click through to the booking under "Trips".

 

[Jack_OC]

There’s plenty of posts on the QF forum about QR schedule changes, and that resulting in tickets not being reissued and ultimately cancelled.

I’m now in the exact same situation on the VA side (flying SIN-DOH-AUH). Long haul leg was rescheduled requiring a new flight to AUH. Other than now being a terrible itinerary (layover has gone from 1:45 to 6:05), it also hasn’t been reticketed (new AUH has blank ticket number on CMT). It’s been about 4 days now.

Also I’ve heard absolutely nothing from VA, not a single email and their MMB page doesn’t even list the flight numbers. I can’t believe how terrible their site is for this.

The QR side is only slightly better, shows my new flights but no option to confirm changes like I’ve had on most other carriers, certainly no option to select alternatives.

Overall quite disappointed in the experience, and now wondering if I’ll lose my booking if VA doesn’t reticket. I’m not super stressed about it as it’s now a pretty ugly way to get from SIN to AUH. - I might even cancel and fly EK to DXB instead.

I realise this doesn't help your situation, but FWIW, last week I had a schedule change for a QR operated flight booked on points via QF - I accepted the revised flight online and received a reissued ticket from QF literally within 5 minutes. I was stunned, to be honest - no idea if this suggests that QF have finally rectified these issues or if I just got lucky. In any case, I would absolutely be concerned about your booking getting cancelled if it's not re-ticketed by VA, so I would definitely phone them ASAP.

 

[MattA]

Ok, bit the bullet and called and mine seems to have been resolved: I accepted the booking change, the agent reticketed it while I was on the line and VA's MMB now reflects the same itinerary as QR. Also on CMT there is now an e-ticket number against both QR sectors.

There's a subtle difference on the QR e-ticket as well. While the e-ticket number is in the top corner (rather than against each sector), the previous one was missing the fare basis code alongside the unaccepted changed sector. This is now showing again on the latest version.

@justinbrett I suggest you'll have to call up to get yours sorted if you still want to fly. I was asked if the change was acceptable to me before she went ahead and accepted it, so it's possible you might be able to push for an alternative itinerary that works better for you.

So on the one hand:
* VA/VFF have done a terrible job here of responding to a partner schedule change; if I didn't read this forum I would have turned up to the airport blissfully unaware (or maybe the booking would have been cancelled at some point before that?)
* QR's MMB and e-ticket format do not make it obvious that a "confirmed" sector is not confirmed.

On the other hand:
* My booking wasn't cancelled on me.
* Pretty much got straight through to the call centre.
* Competent agent understood exactly what the problem was and resolved it on the spot.

 

[AIRwin]

* Competent agent understood exactly what the problem was and resolved it on the spot.

Was it an Australian call centre?

 

[MattA]

Was it an Australian call centre?

Don't think so (do VA/VFF even have one?). Philippines I think based on the accent. But as I say rep was great. Understood the problem, sorted it while I was on the line and waited on the call until I received and checked the email with the new booking details.

 

[justinbrett]

@justinbrett I suggest you'll have to call up to get yours sorted if you still want to fly. I was asked if the change was acceptable to me before she went ahead and accepted it, so it's possible you might be able to push for an alternative itinerary that works better for you.

There really isn't any alternative with VA points (I don't want to fly overnight and this is the only combination for that). Only alternative is switch to EK using QF points or cash.

I'll probably stick with it, but only because my QF WP is recognised so will have lounge access at Doha. I guess I could even look at splitting the flights and spending 24 hours in Qatar, I've never been there before.

 

[MattA]

Postscript to this: it's not just QR partner bookings. I also have an EY booking with VA points that has had some schedule changes (nothing like my QR one, just +/-5 mins here and there). I suspected I needed to call and get this one reticketed too, because when I looked at the booking in MMB on the VA site it looked like this:



But I'd been holding off as I was hoping I might be able to work that to my advantage. Original booking had an overnight in AUH (not intentional; it was all I could get when I booked) so I've been checking off and on to see if something better popped up. Today there was suddenly availability on a connecting flight back from AUH with a much shorter connection in AUH (still EY on their dated 777, but much better than overnighting in AUH). Called up VFF and they were able to move me onto the earlier flight.

Even better, while I was fully prepared to pay the $60 change fee, this was waived due to the airline-initiated schedule change on the original booking.

VA MMB now looks like this:



So, top tips:
* If you see a weird confirmation.status in MMB then you need to call VA to reticket your booking.
* It doesn't seem like there's a deadline on doing so; so if you have any plans at all to try to change the booking it might be worth holding off for a bit.

Since I booked this EY have moved to Amadeus, so I had added this booking to CMT with the new Amadeus PNR. Of course as we all know CMT has been crippled and is still showing the old booking. Nice work Amadeus IT...

 

[featheast]

@MattA Thanks for the information, and I have just noticed exactly the same thing on my booking with EY later this year on VA website with a status of 'confirmation.status'.
I had a look around on TripCase and can see the e-ticket number is the same when I made the booking Nov 22, but I do notice the old ticket has a 10m arrival time difference comparing to the time listed on EY website through MMB. (AMS-AUH)
I will give VA a call today.

 

[Gianni S]

Had a similar situation, booked reward flights with Velocity on a Virgin Atlantic flights. I happened to login a while ago into the Virgin Atlantic app to check the booking and there was a flight time change. I accepted the change and thought nothing of it.
Low and behold months later I run into this thread and after checking my Virgin app the status for the booking was as mentioned by MattA "confirmation.status.

Today i called Velocity to ask if they could reticket the booking and when i asked, the CSA proceeded to inform me there was a flight time change and if i was happy to accept that she would then reissue the ticket(this was the flight changed i had already accepted through the Virgin Atlantic app months earlier.
5 mins later was all done and the Virgin app status has now updated to confirmed.

So looks like even though i accepted the flight time change through Virgin Atlantic, Velocity had no record that i had accepted and they had to process again at their end.
In the past i have received emailed from Velocity about flight changes and to accept them but not on this occasion.

Thanks again for the tips to get the status changed