Velocity Business Rewards seats sold that don't exist...

[drakcir]

I just purchased (2) business rewards seats through the VA website for MEL-SFO on United. Both are Platinum VA members (long term, not that it matters).

Nothing about the booking process seemed out of the ordinary, my points were deducted/credit card charged and I wrote down my VA Ref #... received an email with my booking confirmation and logged into the UA website to select my seats. Still looked fine and all of our info was on both booking pages.

It wasn't until reading the confirmation PDF on the email from VA that I realised there was an issue, so I called the VA GCC and was told that "the seats weren't real, sorry, there must be a glitch... it's been happening lately, we will take a note, sorry about that." It's the 3rd time in the last year that it's happened, though at least this time it was instant and not by pure chance that I realised my flights were not actually ticketed.

Currently feeling really uneasy with the VA-UA partnership and feeling as though I need to frequently check the "confirmed" bookings are still in place. Not ideal when I booked about ~100 paid flights per year (about 20 of those with VA-UA alone) and have not had any codeshare issues with any other airline thus far.

I mean, I am grateful that the points can buy flights at all, but if I can't actually get the seats being literally sold to me, what is the point?

Has anyone else had this experience? Many thanks for any insight.

 

[im.daniel]

Have booked several (6?) UA J redemptions T-7 and closer to departure this year for various family members. No issues experienced so far with failure to ticket.

 

[ozstamps]

Nothing about the booking process seemed out of the ordinary, my points were deducted/credit card charged and I wrote down my VA Ref #... received an email with my booking confirmation and logged into the UA website to select my seats. Still looked fine and all of our info was on both booking pages.


Sounds like a done deal to me. They really should honour those. Not the member fault if they screw up internally.

 

[drakcir]

Nothing about the booking process seemed out of the ordinary, my points were deducted/credit card charged and I wrote down my VA Ref #... received an email with my booking confirmation and logged into the UA website to select my seats. Still looked fine and all of our info was on both booking pages.


Sounds like a done deal to me. They really should honour those. Not the member fault if they screw up internally.

Thank you, I agree. I can’t see how they suddenly have a few Rewards seats pop up, but they’re “not real”. I’m going to call again today and speak with someone else.

 

[ben95]

wasn't until reading the confirmation PDF on the email from VA that I realised there was an issue,

Curious as to what was the sign/indication here?

 

[drakcir]

Curious as to what was the sign/indication here?

The UA booking ref was # DCUA

 

[Bagpuss]

The UA booking ref was # DCUA

So how did you log into United's website to select the seats?

If you were able to log into the website with the VA PNR I'm pretty sure you will find it's a genuine ticket.

To me it's more than likely that the UA booking ref is wrong.

I'd recommend you contact United to confirm they have the booking.

(I've never booked a UA flight via Velocity)

 

[drakcir]

So how did you log into United's website to select the seats?

If you were able to log into the website with the VA PNR I'm pretty sure you will find it's a genuine ticket.

To me it's more than likely that the UA booking ref is wrong.

I'd recommend you contact United to confirm they have the booking.

(I've never booked a UA flight via Velocity)

UA are one of the rare ones that allow you to login with a codeshare PNR and it's still there 'live' now, but there is no ticket # attached and VA have removed the booking from my account. Once logged into the UA site, I was shown my UA PNR.

I have had UA flights cancelled before (that were ticketed as VA) but still remain 'live' on the UA site for weeks. That's why I am nervous about my flights now, as it's only due to my diligence that I am able to see when these issues happen. If one of my bosses ever show up to the airport and are told that their tickets weren't real, I'd be toast. I booked hundreds of flights a year (between DOM and INT'L) and have never had this issue with any other codeshares before.

 

[drakcir]

Nothing about the booking process seemed out of the ordinary, my points were deducted/credit card charged and I wrote down my VA Ref #... received an email with my booking confirmation and logged into the UA website to select my seats. Still looked fine and all of our info was on both booking pages.


Sounds like a done deal to me. They really should honour those. Not the member fault if they screw up internally.

I just spoke to the Velocity Platinum team and was told that it is a United issue and nothing they can do. "The system is signaling that there are Rewards seats available, but when the system goes to ticket them it's being told (by United's system) that there is no availability".... so it just appears that there are bookings that aren't real.

I'm being told that this issue has been occurring since the inception of the partnership and they don't actually understand why it happens. Which means they aren't going to be able to fix it. Ugh.

 

[The Flying Brick]

I just purchased (2) business rewards seats through the VA website for MEL-SFO on United. Both are Platinum VA members (long term, not that it matters).

Nothing about the booking process seemed out of the ordinary, my points were deducted/credit card charged and I wrote down my VA Ref #... received an email with my booking confirmation and logged into the UA website to select my seats. Still looked fine and all of our info was on both booking pages.

It wasn't until reading the confirmation PDF on the email from VA that I realised there was an issue, so I called the VA GCC and was told that "the seats weren't real, sorry, there must be a glitch... it's been happening lately, we will take a note, sorry about that." It's the 3rd time in the last year that it's happened, though at least this time it was instant and not by pure chance that I realised my flights were not actually ticketed.

Currently feeling really uneasy with the VA-UA partnership and feeling as though I need to frequently check the "confirmed" bookings are still in place. Not ideal when I booked about ~100 paid flights per year (about 20 of those with VA-UA alone) and have not had any codeshare issues with any other airline thus far.

I mean, I am grateful that the points can buy flights at all, but if I can't actually get the seats being literally sold to me, what is the point?

Has anyone else had this experience? Many thanks for any insight.

As always, you don’t have a ticket until you have a ticket.
If your booking has an eTicket number than it is real, but without, then it’s not really worth even printing it out as it won’t be getting you on that flight.
Not just a VA issue, many QF Partner airlines from experience do the same, then spending too much time trying sort it out with QF, so that I have that magic number printed on my paper.

 

[travelislife]

As always, you don’t have a ticket until you have a ticket.
If your booking has an eTicket number than it is real, but without, then it’s not really worth even printing it out as it won’t be getting you on that flight.
Not just a VA issue, many QF Partner airlines from experience do the same, then spending too much time trying sort it out with QF, so that I have that magic number printed on my paper.

Vast majority of the flying public don’t understand this. The need for a ticket number. If they receive a ‘confirmed booking’ email with the 6 letter PNR they think that is it.

 

[dandandan]

I have reported on this issue before, I have had it happen multiple time on UA J flights, definitely an error.

 

[Phoenix-1]

This sort of stuff should be illegal. Misleading award seats make the program completely unreliable.