Beware Confirmed Flight Email - Not Ticketed in time - Therefore not valid

[provedor1]

Twice in the last month my wife has booked Points Flights through Platinum Customer service and I have received email confirming booking and flight details.
One from Lisbon to Dubai and Dubai to Perth. All details were enclosed in booking confirmation. We checked on our FF login about a week later and the flights were missing. Rang back Platinum CS - no joy apparently the requested flights were not ticketed internally (Emirate's) in time and therefore booking lapsed. No notification to us of cancellation.
Second was booking from New Orleans to Dallas to Sydney to Perth. Booking confirmed verbally but when booking was checked on FF Login the New Orleans to Dallas was missing. Similar reason the booking was not ticketed in time with AA and that sector was cancelled.

 

[travelislife]

That's pretty piss poor by QF.

 

[Red Roo]

Twice in the last month my wife has booked Points Flights through Platinum Customer service and I have received email confirming booking and flight details.
One from Lisbon to Dubai and Dubai to Perth. All details were enclosed in booking confirmation. We checked on our FF login about a week later and the flights were missing. Rang back Platinum CS - no joy apparently the requested flights were not ticketed internally (Emirate's) in time and therefore booking lapsed. No notification to us of cancellation.
Second was booking from New Orleans to Dallas to Sydney to Perth. Booking confirmed verbally but when booking was checked on FF Login the New Orleans to Dallas was missing. Similar reason the booking was not ticketed in time with AA and that sector was cancelled.

Please send me a private message with the details so I can follow this up internally.

 

[MrJetset]

This has happened to me countless times. Generally it's a non premium agent (even though they may answer as the Premium Desk) who fails to input data into the award booking such as DOB, PIN or has other elements missing. I believe it's taken an average of three calls to get each ticket sorted.

Sometimes, however, it just "loses its place in the queue."

 

[serfty]

True, unless you have that ticket number (081-) a Qantas booking is not confirmed.

 

[UP4014]

A Roo fail, poor service for sure.

Thanks for posting it.

 

[provedor1]

Please send me a private message with the details so I can follow this up internally.

Thanks for follow up call. Seems there may be a procedure issue internally.

We had already solved the issues through Platinum CS. We were concerned we had lost our A flight with Emirates as a celebration for our birthdays. However they were restored by the good folk at Platinum CS.

My reason for posting was to warn fellow travellers to check that they have the "electronic ticket" rather than relying on email.

Once again thanks for your concern.

 

[bmcc]

Another data point - have had this happen to me on at least 3 occasions (most recently just this month, on a joint QF/EK zone 10 award).

Seems most likely to happen when you change an award and there is a offshore Qantas office involved in processing the credit card charges (or refunds). I've had the booking appear on the EK MMB page, but then disappear subsequently when Qantas fail to ticket.

Definitely something to watch out for - and sounds like Qantas need to look at their internal procedures in this respect.

 

[waflyer]

While not exactly the same as the OP's circumstances, I've had two instances in the last 6 months where the flights 'confirmed' but hadn't been 'ticketed'. Both were work flights booked through the travel agent that we have to use which has meant Qantas required their authorization to do anything. Was extremely frustrating, but on both occasions the Qantas staff were wonderful and liaised with the travel agent over the phone and managed to get it sorted within minutes of check-in closing.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

For award travel, I would always recommend you have physical ticket numbers within 72 hours of making your original booking (not 72 hours of payment if there is some sort of 'hold' facility). After this time, airline systems can cancel the reservation because it hasn't been 'paid' for.

If the ticketing airline (QF in this case) doesn't ticket, or tells you there is a queue - ask them to override it and ticket asap.

This is not so much an issue where the ticketing airline is also the operating airline (eg QF FF for a QF flight) - if they make a mistake they can always force open an award seat from their general revenue inventory. But this is much harder when it comes to partner travel.