Hi, I am wondering if anyone else has had the following happen or can offer any advice - I booked j class seats in the sale that ends today to LHR, returning through dubai. Booking confirmed, paid for and tickets issued for me, husband and daughter. I am WP, husband and daughter QFF silver
Tonight I looked at the booking and my husband had disappeared from the booking. Rang platinum line and was told that they had split the booking and my husband now had a separate booking no (although linked). On the flight out we are seated together in emerald city. On the way back, I cannot move him into the front cabin as he is a silver QFF, doesn't appear in my booking and I cannot see the vacant seats in his booking (but can in mine). I was told that 'at the airport' they will sort it out. Will they?
I am not at all impressed. Any advice?
There must have been some reason why they had the need to divide the pnr resulting in your husband & daughter being in a new pnr. Were you returning on different dates or was there only 1 seat left in a particular class on a flight?
Don't ever leave anything until you get to the airport if it can be sorted out over the phone through reservations ahead of time. As a PS pax will not generally be able to view seat allocation in 'Emerald City' reservations will need to override the seating as you are travelling with a WP.
No not acceptable at all IMHO, keep calling and escalating with the Platinum Desk until they have restored the booking to one PNR. No justification for this whatsoever. What reason did they give for splitting the booking ?
You can't reinstate a pnr back to having 3 pax in it once it has been divided as it's a bit like trying to put humpty dumpty back together. If the booking was unticketed or there were plenty of seats available they could always cancel the two pnrs & rebook the three of you again in a single pnr.
You want it all as one booking! As nice as a "linked booking" is, it is not quite the same
When people say "linked booking" I think they perceive that when you see one booking you will automatically see the other pnr but all it entails is each pnr will have a remark in the form of an OSI (other service information) which would eg in Mary Smith's pnr would say something like "OSIQF TCP3 2SMITH/JOHN MR/JANE MISS QF11 23MAY SYD/LAX". In John & Jane's pnr it would say "OSIQF TCP3 1SMITH/MARY MRS QF11 23MAY SYD/LAX".
I wouldn't call it "linking" as such, it's more cross referencing.
I had this recently. Myself and spouse booked on separate pnr's. Called platinum desk, got bookings linked. Could not see spouse booking on my ff account like I have been able to in past. Could only choose my seat, not spouses like I have in the past. Called a 2nd time a few days later, same result and operator said she could not select the seat next to mine for spouse as she is silver (I had already chosen 4A). I had chosen 4A for myself and when I went to check us in online for flight (a few weeks after all this) I was able to use my account, select both of us for checkin (bookings were linked recall) and 4B was free for selection. I don't know if 4B being available was a fluke or not.
Frustrating that when the bookings are linked I can't see both of us on my ff account as. Have been able to in the past.
If you have separate pnrs call up the Premium Desk and have them seat the non WP travelling companion next to you as they won't have access to WP seating.
Linking never allows you to select seats for the other person. It's just a system thing that just alerts staff to try to seat you together. You need to have the same PNR to see and select seats for the other person. On our recent trip on different pnrs I could see that someone was sitting next to me but not that it was my partner. Same for him. On our current booking on same pnrs we can see each other.
I believe it's only once your checkin records are linked in Altea that you will be able to select seats online together as though you were in the same pnr eg if John Smith & Mary Jones are booked in separate pnrs but checkin together it will automatically link pax together in Altea in their customer checkin record (their Amadeus pnrs will remain unchanged ie totally separate).
Examples of checking in together could be:
a) Checking in together by a CSA at a Premium Checkin counter
b) Checking in at an airport kiosk when you select one passenger then use the 'add companion' button to select the other pax
c) Checking in separately via OLCI but when doing the bag drop with a CSA the action of retrieving both pax names & adding checked baggage will link you both
d) At anytime prior to the flight eg T-80 airport staff can retrieve pax names (eg by looking at the OSI list when pre-flighting a day or so prior to travel & picking up TCP'd pax) & add a link
Once pax have been linked in Altea then any future flights they have together they will already be linked provided those future flights are in those same pnrs. This may be why sometimes a WP will be able to see a PS spouse when they look at MMB & allocate seats together ahead of time or via OLCI as it will give the appearance that they are in the same pnr.
I'd love to hear how to do it. We use Amadeus (same as QF) and there isn't a command to merge PNRs, only to link them.
Unless QF have some way of pseudo merging outside of Amadeus so it displays together online.
When I worked at Amadeus as a trainer/help desk ISTR there was an entry that agents and or reservations staff could use where you could do a "visual merge" of pnrs that had been split so if you originally had 8 people on one pnr & they'd been split/divided into 4 separate pnrs by entering this command you were able to view all the different flights/dates for all 8 pax as it would passenger relate the flight segments on the screen at once. This wasn't putting everyone back into one pnr nor could you make any modifications to the bookings in this temporary merged state, it was just for viewing purposes only.
Linking happens in Altea checkin but not in Amadeus reservations which probably accounts for some of the confusion.
