Tickets cancelled by 3rd party

[Tassey69]

In Sydney I was advised that they had been cancelled, it appears that it was only when AA (Denver) managed to get baggage tags into the system through to MEL that someone in QF realised that there was a problem

 

[ozbeachbabe]

In Sydney I was advised that they had been cancelled, it appears that it was only when AA (Denver) managed to get baggage tags into the system through to MEL that someone in QF realised that there was a problem

I don't really understand what you mean by this. If your QF flights had been cancelled that would have been obvious to QF anyway whether or not there was any baggage checked in or not.

I might add that it's still possible for an airline to tag bags through to another airline even if that onward booking had been cancelled.

Of course airlines who practice 100% baggage reconciliation would not load those bags if you were not checked in on a confirmed basis.

Was your AA flight DEN/DFW in a separate pnr to the QF flights?

 

[Mwenenzi]

These questions may have been asked before
Was your AA flight DEN/DFW in a separate pnr to the QF flights? (as above)
Did you fly all the flights as originally ticketed ? (if you skip a flight all later flights on the pnr get cancelled automatically)
Did you or the airlines change the time, date and/or flight number of any flight for any reason after the reservation was made?

We are not getting the full story from the OP IMHO

 

[Tassey69]

AA flight was a separate booking by a TA and no changes were made by QF to my booking

 

[Tassey69]

I should add no changes by QF that I am aware of prior to the flight date of 15/6/12

 

[Mwenenzi]

AA flight was a separate booking by a TA and no changes were made by QF to my booking

Did you fly all the flights as originally ticketed ?

 

[Tassey69]

yes as planned

 

[ozbeachbabe]

AA flight was a separate booking by a TA and no changes were made by QF to my booking

Bingo. I think I've worked out what might have happened.

Forget the earlier theory in post #13 where I thought the PE cabin could have been oversold, I am now convinced that the cancelling of your flights happened accidentally at DEN by the AA checkin agent (or ground handler doing the AA checkin) when they tagged your bags through to MEL.

While working on the help desk for a GDS I frequently saw scenarios not unlike yours and would need to sort things out with our counterparts who worked on the GDS help desk at the airline to find out what happened. It was a bit like a cross between CSI and Air Crash Investigation and like any plane crash it's generally not just one factor that causes an accident but a number of things also referred to as swiss cheese where all the holes line up.

You mentioned that you had a separate booking through a travel agent for your AA flight DEN/DFW and your QF flights DFW/SYD/MEL were made direct through QF not an agent. I think there's a strong possibility that this agent uses the the DL system to make their bookings. Did you ask this agent at any stage to link or make a note of your QF flights to facilitate your bags being checked through to MEL?

If not already done by the TA, when AA at DEN added the QF flight segments immediately after their DEN/DFW sector any action they performed eg accidentally cancelling the QF flights would be flagged as having been done by the system that was used to originally book the AA flight ie DL. This explains why the QF cancellation showed as having been instigated by DL. I can't think of any other way DL would have had to opportunity to cancel your bookings.

Assuming the TA didn't enter the QF flights, when you checked in at DEN and asked for your bags to be checked all the way to MEL, as the CSA would not have seen your onward flights with QF, in order for them to check your bags through to MEL they would have had to add the QF flight numbers into their checkin system manually in order for luggage tags to be printed out to MEL.

It's my belief that the CSA entered the flights into the checkin system but at some stage has cancelled them out again however when they did this it generated a message to QF that cancelled the flights in the QF system. You mentioned that they had a bit of trouble trying to generate bag tags etc. It is my belief that when they were trying to do this that the cancellation of your flights happened.

Whether your QF flights were confirmed or cancelled at the time would not have impacted the CSA's ability to print out the bag tags to MEL but does explain why you didn't receive QF boarding passes.

I don't know whether QF mentioned the date/time it happened but any changes to a booking are always flagged with the time in GMT that action happened eg 2305Z using zulu time. I would be almost certain that the time of the cancellation would have coincided with the time you were at DEN Airport checking in.

I can't really see what more QF could have done for you. There are other airlines in the big wide world who could have treated you less favourably. When you arrived in DFW the staff reinstated your booking in your original class of travel being PE. Despite you both initially being seated in different rows they rearranged other passengers to get you both together.

On arrival in BNE you said the QF staff there were excellent & changed your seating to how it was originally for the short flight to SYD. As you had to clear customs in SYD it was necessary for you to collect your bags ex QF8 then recheck for your domestic flight to MEL at the transfer desk where they told you it was DL who had cancelled your booking.

When you arrived at T3 they even upgraded you to J on the SYD/MEL flight as a goodwill gesture. It sounds as though the points upgrade to J class DFW/SYD had not come through anyway as you would generally receive advice of this the day before.

It's easy to jump to conclusions and direct your anger at the airline you were travelling on however in your case I don't believe QF were to blame for the inconvenience you experienced. Despite it being someone else's mistake they still picked up the pieces and tried to make amends as best as they good given the circumstances.

Disclaimer: Don't take this as an official response on what happened. It's purely SWMBO logic - when a woman knows for sure without knowing for certain.

 

[Tassey69]

Thks Ozbeachbabe you may have hit on the answer,

 

[kiwitripper64]

Was the trip a holiday? Time to forget the flight and remember the "hopefully" good holiday.

 

[Tassey69]

Business for a few days, then to Denver for a conference for 5 days and the rest was a holiday in the rocky mountains which certainly will be remembered