[Anonymous]

[Cwyfan]

Last night, just before our new year’s festivities, I went on line to book seats to Vancouver from LHR for next september, using our miles.

As AA, unlike BA, have no household accounts, I had to make 2 separate transactions on the internet, one from my account and one from my own.

The booking for my wife went smoothly, and my own appeared to be exactly the same. When I got up this morning, just over 12 hours later, I realised that we had been sent confirmation for the booking on my wife’s account, but had been sent nothing on mine. I logged on again to find no booking on my account, so I phoned AA.

The first person to deal with me was hopeless and appeared not to understand the problem at all, so I decided to ring back later. The second time, I had someone who seemed to now how to deal with these types of problems, and we made progress quite quickly. However, it appeared that my booking had in someway not completed, and, at midnight,, not sure where, had been cancelled.

There was now no availability shown for the ticket that I had lost, and so I was told nothing could be done.

I therefore asked in these unusual circumstances would they refund my wife’s booking as it was clear from their own records that what I said was true, but they said that only if I paid cancellation fees.

I feel hard done by, but have not cancelled it yet in case the lost ticket availability might just reappear.

Those of you who knock BA might reflect on this heartless response from their rival, and be warned that you might be next.

[HarryMonk]

Why do you expect us to assume the mistake / error was made by AA rather than yourself ?

[Cwyfan]

I do not ask you to assume anything, but if AA tell me it was on their system for at least 6 hours before it was deleted, I struggle to see that I have such remote powers.

Anyway getting back within 12 hours, even if I have made a mistake, should be retrievable with modern technology.

Other internet shopping has buyer protection, so why not for the airlines?

[HarryMonk]

Sometimes when you make a mistake, there is no point in blaming others, you just have to suck it up

[Cwyfan]

My mistake, I read your response as if you were blaming me, so I look forward to AA sucking it up!

[HarryMonk]

I am not blaming anyone, it is just your expectation that the forum assumes the mistake in on the AA side and not yourself. The use of the term “heartless” as you did not get the resolution you desired regardless of fault smacks as dummy spitting

[Cwyfan]

Not so, what irks me is that if one did make a mistake, no matter how quickly you might spot it, there is no margin for error before the fines kick in with AA, unlike my experience with BA. Who knows now where the error lay, but we know without question where the profit goes.

Many shopping sites send you alerts if a purchase was incomplete. Perhaps that is someway forward in cases such as this, as AA knew I was buying it, as it was in their system until midnight, but never communicated with me that status, so I was unaware that there was a problem.

Is a 24 hour window too much to ask?

[FCTraveller]

AA already offer the facility (very clearly at payment stage) to confirm a booking but put it on hold for up to 5 days. This allows people to make two separate bookings without committing to the first one before the second one is also confirmed. In my opinion this is better than a 24 hour cooling off period. Secondly, it’s very simple, don’t assume a booking is made if the website has not generated the 6 digit booking reference and write it down. I agree with HarryMonk.

[TheRealBabushka]

Kmcottrell,

Did you review Expertflyer first to see to see if there were in fact two seats available for redemption? You could call AA too to confirm before booking online.

[Cwyfan]

I knew about the hold, which is impressive, but surely no one uses it every time, just in case. It was at payment for the second ticket that something went awry, so that might just as well have happened coming out of hold.

I did not reference expertflyer as in addition to AA, the BA site showed availability throughout, as they were BA flights, so I thought that to be the real insurance, particularly as they went off that site after I bought them too.

[Ah,Mr.Bond]

Are you not given the booking reference locators immediatelly on making the transaction? Why wait for an email confirmation?

[SimonS1]

Unfortunately the type of thing that is always a risk with internet bookings. You think the transaction is complete, but due to some IT issue it hasn’t completed in the airline systems.

If doing a transaction like this (2 bookings, 2 sets of FF miles etc) I always prefer to speak to an agent. They can usually block the seats whilst completing the booking for you.

[Cwyfan]

I believed that I had a booking reference, but 20 years of booking AA made me blase about writing it down…after all what are computers for?

To add to my belief, of course, is the fact that the AA agent confirmed on the phone that he could see the transaction, so surely it must have had a reference, but it had been removed at midnight!

[SimonS1]

Maybe all the agent could see was that you attempted to book a ticket but it was never completed. Maybe the airline thought you didn’t want the seat and the booking lapsed.

Unfortunate but it happens. Just like sometimes people thought their booking hadn’t gone through and ended up with 2 bookings.

Frustrating but I don’t see what can be done here.

[Author]

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