Can't see outbound leg of AUS-CAN flight

[Deon]

Hello!

I've booked a flight MEL-SYD-YVR-SYD-MEL on Air Canada's website, and added my Velocity number during the booking. I couldn't book this particular flight on VA's website as it didn't exist as an option for that day.

AC have provided a PNR 43**DE and say to use the same PNR on the VA website:



But the VA website doesn't accept this:




In my Velocity account, a new trip appeared with a different PNR, and for the return journey only:







On the Air Canada website, the booking shows the entire journey:




Long story shot, I can't see the outbound journey at all, and can't perform seat selection. I called Virgin Australia but they told me the flight is ticketed by Air Canada so it's not their problem. I called Air Canada who said that the booking looks fine on their end and they can see both legs of the journey so it's Virgin Australia's problem...

I asked the VA rep if he could just perform seat selection for me, but he said they have no record of the outbound leg at all which is somewhat unsettling for a long-haul international flight I'm due to take in 4 weeks...

Has anyone seen something like this before? Should I be squeezing VA or AC here?

 

[PERLHR]

Is there anything wrong in just settling via the AC web as you can see it? Perhaps the VA app will catch up? Have you tried VA desktop?

 

[kangarooflyer88]

What you are seeing is perfectly normal having done the reverse (booked AC flights on Virgin Australia). Often the details are broken on the Virgin site. What I would encourage you try doing is call Virgin again and see if they can do seat selection this time quoting the Virgin Australia PNR you saw when you went into manage my booking. If they cannot help you, then I wouldn’t worry about it, since we are dealing with a short haul flight anyway. Worse case you’ll do seat selection at checkin.

Some notes from when I flew an international itinerary starting with a Virgin Australia domestic sector:
1) If you cannot check in online (this happened to me by the way) you’ll check in for your flight in person at the Virgin Australia desk. Simply tell the agent you’re flying to Vancouver with them and hand over your passport. They’ll check you in for your Virgin flight and issue boarding passes for your connecting Air Canada flight (they did this when I flew Sydney to Zurich via Melbourne, Abu Dhabi on Virgin/Etihad)
2) At physical check in you’ll always be able to select seats and ensure your Velocity frequent flyer is added.
3) In case you you encounter any issues check in remember the following:
- > have your 6 character PNR from Air Canada and Virgin Australia
-> have your e-Ticket number issued by Air Canada. This is a long number beginning with 014
-> Provide those details to the check in agent if they encounter any issues looking up your itinerary
-> if you still encounter issues with the agent kindly request they get their station manager (supervisor) who may know how to deal with these issues. Sometimes they may need to call the other airline depending on how up to scratch their systems are.

 

[PERLHR]

What you are seeing is perfectly normal having done the reverse (booked AC flights on Virgin Australia). Often the details are broken on the Virgin site. What I would encourage you try doing is call Virgin again and see if they can do seat selection this time quoting the Virgin Australia PNR you saw when you went into manage my booking. If they cannot help you, then I wouldn’t worry about it, since we are dealing with a short haul flight anyway. Worse case you’ll do seat selection at checkin.

Some notes from when I flew an international itinerary starting with a Virgin Australia domestic sector:
1) If you cannot check in online (this happened to me by the way) you’ll check in for your flight in person at the Virgin Australia desk. Simply tell the agent you’re flying to Vancouver with them and hand over your passport. They’ll check you in for your Virgin flight and issue boarding passes for your connecting Air Canada flight (they did this when I flew Sydney to Zurich via Melbourne, Abu Dhabi on Virgin/Etihad)
2) At physical check in you’ll always be able to select seats and ensure your Velocity frequent flyer is added.
3) In case you you encounter any issues check in remember the following:
- > have your 6 character PNR from Air Canada and Virgin Australia
-> have your e-Ticket number issued by Air Canada. This is a long number beginning with 014
-> Provide those details to the check in agent if they encounter any issues looking up your itinerary
-> if you still encounter issues with the agent kindly request they get their station manager (supervisor) who may know how to deal with these issues. Sometimes they may need to call the other airline depending on how up to scratch their systems are.

Why is so complicated when flying with other carriers on VA codeshare? It's just not worth the bother!

 

[kangarooflyer88]

Why is so complicated when flying with other carriers on VA codeshare? It's just not worth the bother!

In fairness I’ve had similar issues with Qantas flying on an economy award flight issued by BA. Couldn’t check in online and had to wait a half hour at AKL for the QF agent to make a call to Sydney to get things sorted.

With that said, I have had more issues with Virgin Australia including one incident flying Air Canada where a schedule change occurred and Virgin didn’t reissue the ticket resulting in the agent in Saint John having to call Montreal to get the whole mess fixed.

What I will say (and I apologize if this offends some) is that Australian airlines are exceptional in their incompetence when it comes to ticketing. I’ve flown a number of different airlines globally (e.g.. Air New Zealand, KLM, Delta, Air Canada, TAP Portugal, Lufthansa, Swiss, EgyptAir, FinnAir, Alaskan) including codeshares and have never had to deal with messes like these before.


-RooFlyer88

 

[Deon]

Spoke to VA and AC again for the third time, and the AC rep was finally able to identify the issue - VA has split the two journeys onto separate bookings and thus separate PNRs.

She gave me the 'third' PNR and I can now see the outbound journey from VAs site.

Gosh, what a headache!




Thanks to those who replied above with suggestions

 

[ben95]

Why is so complicated when flying with other carriers on VA codeshare? It's just not worth the bother!

Doesn't seem to be a codeshare specific issue? I know I'm being pedantic but it could have happened to any inter-line booking, whether the ticket issuer book the codeshare or just a standard interline.

Unfortunately that's just the reality of airline IT systems mostly being lipstics on a pig. They've put enough lipsticks (the website/apps etc) on the pig (the backend GDS system) for 90% of bookings but fall apart when trying to deal with the remaining 10%.