Ticket disappeared

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  • Sanran
    Participant

    I would like to post this “weird” experience I had some time ago, which I waited to report until now as I was still hoping to get an explanation from the airline.

    I booked through my travel agent a flight ZRH-GRU-ZRH-GVA with LX, first and last leg in C, second in F. Some few days before departing I received an email asking me if I wanted to place a bid in order to try to get the upgrade from C to F, which I did. And I got it.
    Therefore my ticket was reconfirmed directly by LX per email with the correct itinerary and dates. I also could see it on my app: everything ok.
    While going to the airport by taxi I checked again the Swiss App in order to check the flight time, but the flight was not there anymore (‘strange’,I thought, ‘but that’s IT’). Once at the check-in, the operator told me very politely that she couldn’t find anything under my name. Therefore I went through my emails and found the last confirmation from LX. Thus she kindly rechecked and found out the flight was cancelled just some half an hour before. I obviously said that I didn’t: as I was standing in front of her, she believed me with no doubts. So she tried again to look in her system but could not find anything valid anymore: she was completely lost in front of the screen. After a short moment of panic (I had no possibility to delay the trip by one day as it was going to last just three days, C was full), she went to speak to her supervisor and some 10 minutes later came back along with him with a bright new ticket.

    I asked LX what was the reason and what was their solution if F was full too (if someone in the waiting list just jumped in at the moment of my “cancellation”). They finally told me they have no idea what happened. At the end of the day everything went well and I cannot complain about anything, but is this part of the magic world of IT?

    Did someone else experience something like that? what do you think happened in reality?


    capetonianm
    Participant

    This is odd for several reasons.

    If your actual reservation had been cancelled, the Passenger Name Record in the system would still be retrievable but it would show no active flights as they go into the history when cancelled. The history would show who cancelled and when, with the communications references associated which shows the office, sign code, and reference of the person cancelling. Same applies if for some reason your e-ticket had been voided, suspended or refunded.

    I would suggest you ask your travel agent as they will be able to retrieve the booking and view the full PNR history showing all changes, regardless of who made them, and which they should be able to interpret. It is not in plain text but is nevertheless something they should be familiar with and if not you might consider changing your agent.

    1 user thanked author for this post.

    SwissExPat
    Participant

    I am lost here..

    You said the flight was cancelled… but you seem to have flown all the same.. Was it your upgrade to F was cancelled ???


    Sanran
    Participant

    Hello capetonianm,
    thank you for your reply. I thought too LX had to know something, but didn’t tell me anything finally: maybe it was such a big internal mistake they didn’t want to reveal? I’ll never know it.
    Regarding the travel agent, he’s a very good friend of mine working through another operator in order to get tickets issued and he explained me he cannot get to that level of information because of that. But I cannot think changing him!


    Sanran
    Participant

    Hello SwissExPat,
    sorry for my bad wording; actually they re-issued a new one at the desk as apparently they understood (at least!) that I didn’t do anything wrong and the ticket was paid. That’s why at the end I cannot complain about the trip: mine was more curiosity to understand what could have happened.


    capetonianm
    Participant

    Under most administrations, information held about you by a third party should be made available to you on request. You are entitled to that information.

    Your agent could request it from the fulfilment office which issues the tickets, or you could request it directly from that office, or from LX. Whether or not you want to go to that trouble and risk making waves is another story, but you are within your rights to do so.


    SwissExPat
    Participant

    I am still confused as to what exactly happened?

    Are you saying that you bid for an Upgrade to F, this was confirmed, You made a payment for this bid and then the airline reneagued on this and you flew as per your original J booking ?

    ??


    Down under
    Participant

    To put it simple: their system messed up. When you make changes on a ticketed booking (date, class, flight number), the ticket needs to be re-validated or reissued. There was a mismatch because the original ticket was in C class but the flight was now in F class after you upgraded. This should have been done automatically or be sent to a queue for someone to process it. Reservations systems usually have an auto-cancel function by which any segments without a valid ticket are cancelled about 30 minutes before departure to avoid no shows and because it was the first flight the rest of the booking got cancelled due to no show. If they fail to reissue or re-validate your ticket, an alert should have popped up telling you to contact the airline because there is something wrong the ticket but they missed that part too. This should all be visible in the booking history but they probably were embarrassed to admit it was a system issue, so they just re-booked the flights and reissued your ticket. I hope this helps.

    1 user thanked author for this post.

    Sanran
    Participant

    Thank you for this explanation DownUnder. That makes sense, for the “unknown” reason too.

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