US Dividend Miles - Award Booking Questions and General Discussion

[smit0847]

Had some unusual USDM calls tonight:
- One agent Dorothy was so old she could hardly speak. If you've seen the South Park episode about home jewellery shopping network she sounded like the callers. Each letter and word required a huge amount of effort as she weezed through the call. I felt sorry for her but was amazed she was still working - she could barely speak!
- Another call had some weird crossed line where I was connected to a customer asking to speak to someone about dividend miles!
- Another agent completed her conversation with a colleague for a good 15 seconds before saying anything to me and was incredibly rude. I asked her about a specific flight I had been trouble booking and then once she found it asked if it could be added to an existing hold. Her response was 'if you had a hold that is information you should have given me earlier so you didnt waste my time'.
- Another agent assured me she had put in the correct date, I checked the hold online after the call and she had put the flight two days later. I called another agent who assured me she had corrected it to the right day, thought I'd check online and she'd put it on the wrong day. Lucky I didn't ticket there and then!

What happens where the agent stuffs up and tickets you on the wrong day? Would they correct it free of charge? Are you supposed to put every reservation on hold in order to check the agent didnt stuff it up?!

 

[ketsuzei]

Has anyone else encountered the bug where Canberra is a day behind Sydney according to the US Airways computers? That's made things a lot of fun...

 

[smit0847]

Has anyone else encountered the bug where Canberra is a day behind Sydney according to the US Airways computers? That's made things a lot of fun...

Tried booking a flight that leaves between midnight and 2am?

'which day does it arrive?'
'Sir, the flight obviously arrives the same day it departs'
'But dont your airline days run from 2am to 2am meaning it would depart on one calendar day and arrive on another'
'oh, ummm'

 

[ketsuzei]

It's a long time to spend in a 738.

 

[paultiffen]

What's the lady date to book usdm before the merger? 31 st March?

 

[paultiffen]

I'm looking at booking to broome return in J if that helps

 

[hossein_au]

Has anyone else encountered the bug where Canberra is a day behind Sydney according to the US Airways computers? That's made things a lot of fun...

Yep, my flights from CBR to either SYD or MEL are taking 23 hours or so But every time I call they assure me it is all ok. As long as departure date and flight numbers are ok, I think everything is kosher.

 

[ketsuzei]

Yep, my flights from CBR to either SYD or MEL are taking 23 hours or so But every time I call then assure me it is all ok. As long as departure date and flight numbers are ok, I think everything is kosher.

I got back from SYD in -23 hours once...

I've encountered problems with say CBR-SYD-NRT, where I miss minimum connection time due to supposedly arriving a day later... it eventually gets sorted out, but I've always needed to get it escalated.

 

[Craigie]

Had some unusual USDM calls tonight:

What happens where the agent stuffs up and tickets you on the wrong day? Would they correct it free of charge? Are you supposed to put every reservation on hold in order to check the agent didnt stuff it up?!

They were certainly under the pump. I also spent ~ 4 hours on the phone to USDM.

- one agent couldn't have been more helpful and I spent an hour with her searching unsuccessfully (I was showing seats of which she couldn't see anything)

- one agent gave me about 5 minutes before telling me "can you call back in a couple of hours, I need to clear all these people on hold"...

- while I was on with another one I could hear her colleague speaking to someone who could not understand there was no business class seats between jfk and Seoul, all of October, none, there's nothing, there isn't any, all sold out, "are you going to speak English to me or do I need to end this call?" .. She sounded frustrated.

- Finally found something but it was bizarre. I found 2 seats on QF10 LHR-DXB on BA.com and 2 seats on the same flight DXB-MEL on QF.com but only by searching funny routings to make it show. The dates lined up so it should have shown the whole flight, but it only showed up as individual segments. Long story short that agent went to the rates desk and came back with invalid routing because Dubai is not a hub city so can't connect in it.
- next agent I fed the flights to which she could also see seats but with the segments split up. Then the waiting really began. 1:05 on hold while she tried to get the taxes changes. She came back a few times to thank me for my patience. In the end she said that they still hadn't finished so she promised she would put the taxes charges in the booking so if I could ring back today and pay them that would be great. I'm not expecting it'll work but obviously I'll be trying again.

Edit: just to clarify, I was trying to change already ticketed flights

 

[sergeyvzn]

- Finally found something but it was bizarre. I found 2 seats on QF10 LHR-DXB on BA.com and 2 seats on the same flight DXB-MEL on QF.com but only by searching funny routings to make it show. The dates lined up so it should have shown the whole flight, but it only showed up as individual segments. Long story short that agent went to the rates desk and came back with invalid routing because Dubai is not a hub city so can't connect in it

Has anyone else come across this reason given?

the other week my partner was told the same thing - can't connect in Munich as it's not a hub city - when trying to change his itinerary

as far as I know there's no rule about connecting in a non-hub city (or in a non US Airways international gateway), there's only a rule about not being able to stopover in one. Do they now stretch it a bit further and include all connections in ports that are non-OW hubs? It's concerning as it makes quite a few routes impossible theoretically including anything out of East Coast Australia via Perth to Doha on Qatar as Perth is technically not a OneWorld hub (only Sydney and Melborne are in Australia)

 

[MEL_Traveller]

of course you can connect in non-hub cities!

i was was trying to find the info... but I believe separate QF flights cannot be booked via DXB... you can't connect qf->QF back-to-back same day or something.

 

[sergeyvzn]

of course you can connect in non-hub cities!

i was was trying to find the info... but I believe separate QF flights cannot be booked via DXB... you can't connect qf->QF back-to-back same day or something.

I think you're right (as always) I remember reading something about connecting in DXB on two segments of the same QF flight if they are available separately but not as a whole
However, as I said before, my partner was told he couldn't connect in Munich from a BA flight to an AB one because "you can't connect in a non One World hub city"...I sincerely hope it was just an incompetent agent!
He ended up finding a BA/AB combination going via TXL and this was ok

 

[MEL_Traveller]

was told he couldn't connect in Munich from a BA flight to an AB one because "you can't connect in a non One World hub city"...I sincerely hope it was just an incompetent agent!
He ended up finding a BA/AB combination going via TXL and this was ok

either the agent, or a routing issue and the agent just gave what they thought was wrong with the itinerary, rather than actually going to find the real reason why they weren't going to allow it. What was the exact route with the proposed BA/AB connection? But in general, there is no prohibition on connecting outside a hub.

 

[Craigie]

of course you can connect in non-hub cities!

i was was trying to find the info... but I believe separate QF flights cannot be booked via DXB... you can't connect qf->QF back-to-back same day or something.

We'll see that's the thing
It was QF10 on 28th
Then QF10 on 29th. But same flight

Was just gonna HUACA a few times to see if I could get it...

 

[MEL_Traveller]

We'll see that's the thing
It was QF10 on 28th
Then QF10 on 29th. But same flight

Was just gonna HUACA a few times to see if I could get it...

So that would give you a stop of more than 24 hours in Dubai? That's not allowed because Dubai is not a oneworld hub.

 

[sergeyvzn]

either the agent, or a routing issue and the agent just gave what they thought was wrong with the itinerary, rather than actually going to find the real reason why they weren't going to allow it. What was the exact route with the proposed BA/AB connection? But in general, there is no prohibition on connecting outside a hub.

I don't think it was a routing issue, he wanted LHR-MUC-BDS and got LHR-TXL-BRI instead which is basically the same thing

 

[Craigie]

So that would give you a stop of more than 24 hours in Dubai? That's not allowed because Dubai is not a oneworld hub.

Arrived 23:45 on the 28th
Departed 01:15 on 29th

Hour and a half.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Arrived 23:45 on the 28th
Departed 01:15 on 29th

Hour and a half.

that's the same thing as connecting same day, back-to-back. You can't take the same plane service as two separate sectors, even if the calendar day might be different.

 

[Craigie]

that's the same thing as connecting same day, back-to-back. You can't take the same plane service as two separate sectors, even if the calendar day might be different.

Which is what I found strange. Is there something in the membership guide about that?

I didn't expect it to work because they couldn't see the segments married up but they could see the separate flights with seats available and were willing to try it so I wasn't going to stop them.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Which is what I found strange. Is there something in the membership guide about that?

I didn't expect it to work because they couldn't see the segments married up but they could see the separate flights with seats available and were willing to try it so I wasn't going to stop them.

QF prolly doesn't want to sell the ticket as a through ticket. They're happy for someone to fly an individual sector, but are protecting their revenues on the through fare.

There is nothing in the membership guide specifically on the QF flight connection in DXB. I have at the back of my mind (someone will correct me) that it might actually go further than just award tickets? I'm not sure if you can book two separate QF sectors for the same flight for a paid ticket via DXB? Or is that only if you wanted to swap from the QF1 to 9 and QF2 to 10?