Seat Not Ticketed - How Come?

[robolb]

I'm trying to figure out how and why this happened, so as to avoid it in the future.

Short story.

I'm in Sydney.
My wife has been in Bangkok.
We changed her return flight (BKK-SYD) a couple of times recently.

She was checking in this afternoon in Bangkok for QF24 to come back to Sydney.
Earlier today I double checked flight number, seat number etc, via her FF Account online.
All good.

She gets to the check in. She is not booked on the flight.
They ask for a 13 digit number, that we don't have.
Booking reference is fine, but we need this 13 digit number before she can check in.
Mild panic from her.........

I call Qantas here in Australia.
Within a few minutes it is fixed.
The flight/booking had not been 'ticketed'.
Why not I ask?
No idea says Qantas rep.
This also happened to me 2 weeks ago in Melbourne I reply.
Why did it happen? How can we avoid it in future?
No idea says Qantas rep.......

OK, this did not just 'happen' for no reason.

So did I do something wrong?
Did the Qantas staff do something wrong?
It would be nice to know for future reference.
To know what to check or ask.......

If I had not been available to call Qantas here in Australia, I'm not sure how it would have got resolved.

Any thoughts on the cause and how to avoid in future?

 

[serfty]

While a PNR enables you to select seats, enter APIS and other things, a ticket number is all important.

After making a booking check all confirmation email atc.and look for a ticket number (for Qantas it will start with 081-).

If you cannot locate this, then after a day or two call Qantas, supply the PNR and ask what the ticket number is.

 

[robolb]

While a PNR enables you to select seats, enter APIS and other things, a ticket number is all important.

After making a booking check all confirmation email atc.and look for a ticket number (for Qantas it will start with 081-).

If you cannot locate this, then after a day or two call Qantas, supply the PNR and ask what the ticket number is.

OK thanks. a good tip.
But this really shouldn't be necessary surely?
We really need to check that the booking staff did the right thing?
What could I do at the time of booking to make sure it's ticketed?

It's only happened twice in 25 years, and both in the last 4 weeks.... just made me wonder what went wrong.

 

[RooFlyer]

The reasons why a booking is not ticketed are mysterious. Often, airlines will queue the ticketing process or 'batch' them, say at the end of the day, or a week hence if the flight is some time off. If something happens with the queue or batch, ticketing may not occur. If you make a booking on AA for a flight say 4 months away, the ticketing may occur any time from straight away till about a week prior. It can be nerve wracking.

But yes! Always check for the 13 digit ticket number on any booking paperwork (and it won't be staff, but the IT). If its not there, call and ask for the booking to be ticketed there and then. BTW each airline's tickets start with a unique 3 digit number for the airline. I think for Qantas its 081.

 

[RooFlyer]

Not related to the immediate issue, but another example of ticketing snafus.

Say you book a Qatar (QR) flight using Qantas points, and its been ticketed OK, no worries. If you then make a change to the booking, say flying same flight on a different date, calling Qantas to do it, its highly likely that QR will cancel the booking when Qantas puts the request through. Why they do this is anyone's guess, but the trick is to ask the Qantas agent to "re-issue the ticket while I'm on the line". Experienced Qantas agents will know the reason for this request and will do it no problems; less experienced ones may baulk at it.

 

[robolb]

All makes sense..........thanks.

 

[jetpack]

This happened to me a while back, also after making a change to an existing ticket. The check in agent tried to sort it out but it took forever because they had to wait in a queue on the phone. Almost didn't make the flight. The check in agent was even blaming me for not making sure it was ticketed.

 

[cmon0005]

My ticket issue was delayed a few months ago for about 4 days, turns out it was because i asked for the payment to be taken out of 2 different credit cards and hence was in a non urgent manual ticketing queue. Once i called back chasing the ticket it was issued on the phone.

 

[madrooster]

My ticket issue was delayed a few months ago for about 4 days, turns out it was because i asked for the payment to be taken out of 2 different credit cards and hence was in a non urgent manual ticketing queue. Once i called back chasing the ticket it was issued on the phone.

There is no issue with using multiple cards for payment as long as it's one card per passenger, it can be issued by the automatic ticketing bot and does not require manual intervention so it appears that they lied to you about that.

 

[RoMambai]

I was almost left stranded in Mexico City after Qantas did the same thing to me on an award flight to LAX last year. Was left arguing my case for an hour with hostile AA staff who assumed I was some narco mule. In the end, I got through but it was terribly frustrating. I always check before hand now. The interesting point afterwards was I received points for the journey as it was treated as a cash ticket. The 3000 QFF was not worth the heartache, not even close.

 

[oz_mark]

Qantas goes through phases of this.
One tell tale sign is that they haven't taken payment

 

[cmon0005]

There is no issue with using multiple cards for payment as long as it's one card per passenger, it can be issued by the automatic ticketing bot and does not require manual intervention so it appears that they lied to you about that.

3 pax in total and non-equal amounts ($3000 on my Qantas premier card to activate the bonus points) then the remainder of $400 on my amex. Maybe that's why?

 

[MEL_Traveller]

OK thanks. a good tip.
But this really shouldn't be necessary surely?
We really need to check that the booking staff did the right thing?
What could I do at the time of booking to make sure it's ticketed?

It's only happened twice in 25 years, and both in the last 4 weeks.... just made me wonder what went wrong.

What went 'wrong' is that Qantas failed to issue the ticket. Because of system limitations or human error. It's 100% their problem. But the issue isn't unique to Qantas. Most airlines have the same problems.

Agree, it shouldn't be necessary for a passenger to double check. But checking takes 60 seconds and can potentially save you hours of hassle or stress. And expense if calling from overseas. It's a good habit to get in to because one day, even after 25 years, it can happen.

 

[blackcat20]

Sometimes it just happens. We booked flights to Hawaii months ago and it only ticketed last week after I called them (three times!). It was sitting in a queue and they just hadn't gotten to it yet.

 

[Anna]

I don't relax until I have been emailed the itinerary, which as far as I can work out is only emailed after they have ticketed it. I know it appears on my QFF account with a PNR almost as soon as I have booked it and I can select seats, but I also know that's not enough to be confident that it's gone through correctly.

But am I right to think that if I have the emailed itinerary it must have been ticketed? Appreciate the gurus' comments on that.

A couple of times I have rung up to ask why I haven't received the itinerary by email and the answer has been 'because it's in a manual ticketing queue and hasn't been processed yet. Let me do that for you now'. But other times I've been told 'no idea why you haven't received it, I will re-send it'.

 

[RooFlyer]

Anna, better to look out for the e-ticket with a ticket number on it; only then are you reasonably secure; not sure what you mean by 'itinerary' but AA for instance may send you a 'flight confirmation', with flights listed etc AND a PNR, but it won't necessarily be ticketed, as they regularly don't 'ticket' until close to flight times.

However the problem with the OP, and several posters above (and me, once) is that, having received their original e-ticket, they then made a change to their reservation and didn't realise the thing needed to have the ticket re-issued. Not looking out for it, they arrive at the airport only to find that the re-issue/re-ticketing hasn't been done (for whatever reason).

 

[blackcat20]

By itinerary @Anna means the e-ticket email. At least for QF, you dont get that until its been ticketed. If you want to check, used checkmytrip.com to see if you have a ticket number.

 

[robolb]

All ended well. She got an upgrade at the gate (previouly requested)

 

[JohnK]

I received a call from Emirates around an hour ago they have my wife booked twice on the BNE-SIN flight in a few hours but not my infant daughter. Apparently both bookings have been fully charged but I've only paid once.

I made the Qantas booking on 04 January and added my infant daughter later that day and paid $59. I've got bassinets allocated for BNE-SIN and SIN-BNE but infant daughter not in booking.

I wasted my time at the Sales desk and then rushed to board the SYD-BNE flight and no time to relax. See if it's fixed when I get to BNE in an hour or so.

Clowns. This stupidity with ticketing cannot continue.

 

[cmon0005]

Hope it works out for you JohnK, let us know how you go.