Airline Logic

AdamZ

AdamZ

Touchdown! Greaser!
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Display name:
Adam Zucker
Despite the rant I have a serious question. What is behind the logic ( if there is any) of airlines when they won't change a reservation when it won't cost them anything other than perhaps the labor costs of a few data entry key strokes. I get the whole non refundable thing, but the refusal to change a reservation is perplexing.

For example, my daughter has a friend from Scotland staying with us in Philly. The friend who was my daughter's co-counselor at an overnight camp, came here through a placement agency that places foreign kids in camp jobs in the U.S. The agency books the flights from the home countries etc. So my daughters friend was booked to fly from Laguardia to Philadelphia to Glasglow. This was booked before she met my daughter. So now that she is in Philly she has to take a train to a cab to LGA to fly BACK to PHL where she will then catch the flight to Glasglow.

So since she is already in Philly and it only a 30 minute ride to PHL where she will end up for the second leg anyway I call AA to see if we can cancel the first leg from LGA to PHL and just have her take the international leg of the flight directly from PHL. She didn't want any money back just to take the flight from PHL where she was transferring anyway. First I have to say the AA rep on the phone really tried hard to help us but he could not. He said AA required that she cancel and re-book the flight direct out of PHL but if she did that she could not use any credit from the original flight for the one she would have to re-book. So she will be going to NY to fly BACK to Philly.

What or where is the logic??:mad2::dunno:
 
It's all about the money.
 
There is none. Remember the fiasco in trying to get re-booked to Milwaukee or Green Bay, when they cancelled the GRR flight?

"We ca re-book you to Indianapolis will that help?"
 
Yup, they could make the change and make 20 bucks (maybe) selling a cheap fare from NY to Philly. But noooooo, the rulez (their rules) say they can't do that so no changing the reservation...

No sympathy at all for any airline complaints about profitability...
 
I guess because if they allowed everyone to reschedule they might end up with semi-empty flights
 
The way it was explained to me once is because of competition on some legs, airlines are forced to compete through a stopover flight.

E.g. if you fly Seattle to Miami, you can either fly Alaskan or United. Alaskan would fly direct, United fly via Chicago.

United of course has to compete with Alaskan, so they will reduce their fare in order to pick up some SEA->ORD->MIA fares.

HOWEVER, on the actual ORD->MIA route initiating in Chicago, United has no competition so they can actually sell the fare for much higher. So much so that a ORD->MIA ticket can be more expensive than a SEA->ORD->MIA ticket.

If they allowed changes, everybody in Chicago would just buy SEA->ORD->MIA tickets and throw away the SEA->ORD part. Hence, they don't allow any changes.

Makes sense in a weird screwed up 8 hotdogs vs. 6 buns kind of way.
 
deonb said:
The way it was explained to me once is because of competition on some legs, airlines are forced to compete through a stopover flight.

E.g. if you fly Seattle to Miami, you can either fly Alaskan or United. Alaskan would fly direct, United fly via Chicago.

United of course has to compete with Alaskan, so they will reduce their fare in order to pick up some SEA->ORD->MIA fares.

HOWEVER, on the actual ORD->MIA route initiating in Chicago, United has no competition so they can actually sell the fare for much higher. So much so that a ORD->MIA ticket can be more expensive than a SEA->ORD->MIA ticket.

If they allowed changes, everybody in Chicago would just buy SEA->ORD->MIA tickets and throw away the SEA->ORD part. Hence, they don't allow any changes.

Makes sense in a weird screwed up 8 hotdogs vs. 6 buns kind of way.
Click to expand...

The difference is that no one in their right mind flys from LGA to PHL
 
deonb said:
The way it was explained to me once is because of competition on some legs, airlines are forced to compete through a stopover flight.

E.g. if you fly Seattle to Miami, you can either fly Alaskan or United. Alaskan would fly direct, United fly via Chicago.

United of course has to compete with Alaskan, so they will reduce their fare in order to pick up some SEA->ORD->MIA fares.

HOWEVER, on the actual ORD->MIA route initiating in Chicago, United has no competition so they can actually sell the fare for much higher. So much so that a ORD->MIA ticket can be more expensive than a SEA->ORD->MIA ticket.

If they allowed changes, everybody in Chicago would just buy SEA->ORD->MIA tickets and throw away the SEA->ORD part. Hence, they don't allow any changes.

Makes sense in a weird screwed up 8 hotdogs vs. 6 buns kind of way.
Click to expand...

This is the correct answer. You people can't be trusted and since even our most loyal passenger counts for .00001% of our business, it's much easier for us just to screw everyone.

Sincerely,

Airline Executive

Another example: Delta, which pretty much has a monopoly in Salt Lake City, has two fares to JFK. A "rape me" fare with 21 day purchase and a "pillage me" fare for shorter notice. However you can book a Las Vegas to JFK fare, which will connect in Salt Lake and thus include the same flight to JFK for half the price.
 
Wingsofglass said:
This is the correct answer. You people can't be trusted and since even our most loyal passenger counts for .00001% of our business, it's much easier for us just to screw everyone.

Sincerely,

Airline Executive

Another example: Delta, which pretty much has a monopoly in Salt Lake City, has two fares to JFK. A "rape me" fare with 21 day purchase and a "pillage me" fare for shorter notice. However you can book a Las Vegas to JFK fare, which will connect in Salt Lake and thus include the same flight to JFK for half the price.
Click to expand...

Except the consumer is a barking dog with no teeth. They'll get right back on that airline the second their travel wants makes said airline the cheapest. The airline consumer exercises a great deal of inelasticity when it comes to his/her entitlement to criss-cross the Country in one day. Cross-country travel as a commodity is very monopolistic in nature, as there are no competing venues to subsonic commercial aircraft.

Now get back on your seat and STFU denizen, enjoy the lack of shoulder room and the torturous day-long passenger airport pre-arrival and TSA/terminal wait kabuki. :yes:
 
Southwest doesn't do that crap. But, you can't fly to Scotland on Southwest. Yet.
 
And if you don't check in for the ny to PHL leg, then you are a no show and your seat from PHL to Europe gets canceled.
 
BillTIZ said:
And if you don't check in for the ny to PHL leg, then you are a no show and your seat from PHL to Europe gets canceled.
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What would happen if the pax had a PHL to LGA flight in order to make the LGA-PHL-wherever flight, and then, so unfortunately the pax missed the flight from PHL to LGA? but fortunately the pax could catchup with the flight in PHL...

;-)
 
Bob Noel said:
What would happen if the pax had a PHL to LGA flight in order to make the LGA-PHL-wherever flight, and then, so unfortunately the pax missed the flight from PHL to LGA? but fortunately the pax could catchup with the flight in PHL...

;-)
Click to expand...

It would be pretty obvious what was being tried.

For the OP, it would be a dice roll, as they would be flying on two separate records and the rules that currently apply to joining a flight listing in the middle would still apply. They would be at the mercy of a Customer Service Representative Manager override. 10% chance of that happening given the current management culture at AA.

For a record originally built that way, maybe a 40% chance of no additional fees.
 
The worst case that ever happened to me - I bought a business class British Airways ticket from Seattle to Johannesburg, flying SEA->LHR->JNB, with a 1 day stopover in LHR. Wasn't connecting - it was true leave-the-airport stopover.

Bought it part miles, part cash. It was something like a 100'000 miles + $2000 cash split. Saved up for years for those miles.

I missed the SEA->LHR leg (by a day...) due to my own stupidity.

So I got to the airport the next day, and I figured, ok, fine, I'll just pay for another flight to LHR and then still catch the LHR->JNB leg, and not do the 1 day stopover in London.

NOPE.

Because I missed the first leg, BA cancelled the entire ticket. Non-refundable. Not just the SEA->LHR leg, but LHR->JNB as well.

This wasn't even ticketed as a connecting flight, it was already a 2-legged + 1 day stopover flight, which means airport taxes and everything was already paid. And I still could catch the LHR->JNB flight, even arriving a day late.

If I just bought SEA->LHR and LHR->JNB as 2 separate tickets, this wouldn't have been an issue.

And the thing is - I generally ALWAYS buy this kind of flight as 2 separate tickets. The ticketing system (at least back then) was easier to work with to get the best discount days if you buy separate tickets. But for some reason on that flight I combined them and ticketed as single ticket. Wasn't cheaper or anything, I basically just pushed the wrong button.

That simple ticketing choice meant I had to buy a new ticket which costed me $5600, and I still lost the 100'000 miles and $2000 for the original ticket, and I now was stuck flying economy instead of business.

If I instead just ticketed it as 2 tickets, I would have been out $1200 for just the SEA->LHR leg, and still would have been able to use the business class ticket on the London to Johannesburg leg.

I begged and pleaded with BA just to get my miles back, but nope. Now LUCKILY, I worked for a huge corporation at the time, and we gave so much business to British Airways, that we had a British Airways ticketing agent on staff - I only found it out later (was quite surprised that was even a thing). He was able to take pity on me and refunded me the 100'000 miles. There was nothing he could do with the $2000 I spent on the original ticket, nor the $5600 on the subsequent ticket.

So all in all, I was out $7600 instead of just $1200 simply because of combining 2 flights on 1 piece of paper.

Needless to say, "connecting flight" hasn't been on my vocabulary ever since.
 
I fly a lot. In Texas winter and spring weather the initial regional flight gets cancelled fairly often. If I just have my wife drive me to Dallas to catch the second flight I'll have a problem UNLESS I talk to the airline and let them fix it while I drive. If I do that I have no problem. I even get a small refund check for the cancelled first leg. More often than not I try to get re-routed through Austin or Houston since those airports are closer. About half the time they accommodate. I lose my chosen seat but I get home. It isn't hard for me to manage itinerary changes but I get more practice than some. Unlike most things in life in this case asking permission is better than asking forgiveness.
 
The actual reason is, that the airlines want to have people who pay for flexible tickets.

If you think your schedule will change - book a flex ticket. It's usually 50-100% more expensive, but people do that - alot.

If they would allow free changes (which btw they do, you just need to have enough shiny metal on your freq flyer card), people would stop paying for that flexibility, and that way they would lose out alot of money.
 
deonb said:
The worst case that ever happened to me - I bought a business class British Airways ticket from Seattle to Johannesburg, flying SEA->LHR->JNB, with a 1 day stopover in LHR. Wasn't connecting - it was true leave-the-airport stopover.

Bought it part miles, part cash. It was something like a 100'000 miles + $2000 cash split. Saved up for years for those miles.

I missed the SEA->LHR leg (by a day...) due to my own stupidity.

So I got to the airport the next day, and I figured, ok, fine, I'll just pay for another flight to LHR and then still catch the LHR->JNB leg, and not do the 1 day stopover in London.

NOPE.

Because I missed the first leg, BA cancelled the entire ticket. Non-refundable. Not just the SEA->LHR leg, but LHR->JNB as well.

This wasn't even ticketed as a connecting flight, it was already a 2-legged + 1 day stopover flight, which means airport taxes and everything was already paid. And I still could catch the LHR->JNB flight, even arriving a day late.

If I just bought SEA->LHR and LHR->JNB as 2 separate tickets, this wouldn't have been an issue.

And the thing is - I generally ALWAYS buy this kind of flight as 2 separate tickets. The ticketing system (at least back then) was easier to work with to get the best discount days if you buy separate tickets. But for some reason on that flight I combined them and ticketed as single ticket. Wasn't cheaper or anything, I basically just pushed the wrong button.

That simple ticketing choice meant I had to buy a new ticket which costed me $5600, and I still lost the 100'000 miles and $2000 for the original ticket, and I now was stuck flying economy instead of business.

If I instead just ticketed it as 2 tickets, I would have been out $1200 for just the SEA->LHR leg, and still would have been able to use the business class ticket on the London to Johannesburg leg.

I begged and pleaded with BA just to get my miles back, but nope. Now LUCKILY, I worked for a huge corporation at the time, and we gave so much business to British Airways, that we had a British Airways ticketing agent on staff - I only found it out later (was quite surprised that was even a thing). He was able to take pity on me and refunded me the 100'000 miles. There was nothing he could do with the $2000 I spent on the original ticket, nor the $5600 on the subsequent ticket.

So all in all, I was out $7600 instead of just $1200 simply because of combining 2 flights on 1 piece of paper.

Needless to say, "connecting flight" hasn't been on my vocabulary ever since.
Click to expand...

Next time, read the ticket conditions. It specifically says ticket must be used in order it is written. If the first segment is unused, the rest of it will be void.

It doesn't matter if you are "connecting" or not. Such term doesn't exist. The ticket was SEA-LHR-JNB, so it must be used in that order.

Did you open a Chase BA credit card for those 100k miles by any chance?

BA is very flexible with booking fkups like this one for passengers who actually travel with them.
People with the 100k Chase bonus, not so much.
 
mtuomi said:
Next time, read the ticket conditions. It specifically says ticket must be used in order it is written. If the first segment is unused, the rest of it will be void.

It doesn't matter if you are "connecting" or not. Such term doesn't exist. The ticket was SEA-LHR-JNB, so it must be used in that order.

Did you open a Chase BA credit card for those 100k miles by any chance?

BA is very flexible with booking fkups like this one for passengers who actually travel with them.
People with the 100k Chase bonus, not so much.
Click to expand...

I know their ticketing conditions is basically: "Handing us money gives us the legal right to make you feel like you've just taken a prison shower".

I knew that going in - I didn't set out on planning to miss the leg - it just happened.

All I'm saying is that I'm now ticketing flights on as many individual pieces of paper as possible. If it's that important to them, then that's what they'll get.

I had a Chase BA card, but I got most of my miles via flying on BA itself. I was silver tier at the time, which also required recent miles travelled - not just accumulated.

Since then been flying Air France and Emirates only. It's not really any better. I hope one day I'll have the courage to cross the Atlantic in GA, but if not, there is always the Queen Mary + a Ferry pilot. I'm so done with commercial air travel.
 
EdFred said:
There is none. Remember the fiasco in trying to get re-booked to Milwaukee or Green Bay, when they cancelled the GRR flight?

"We ca re-book you to Indianapolis will that help?"
Click to expand...

This was one of the most absurd airline events. I was flying USAirways from PHL to GRR where Ed was going to meet me and fly me to 6Y9er for the Labor Day flyin.

On the way to PHL there was a lot of traffic so I called USAir to check on the status of the flight. They responded that the flight was cancelled. ( last one of the day) So I pull off the highway call Ed and ask where else can you pick me up. So we come up with Milwaukee, Green Bay and I think Traverse City.

I call USAirways back and ask if I can be rebooked on one of those flights. They tell me they can send me to Green Bay or Milwaukee but it would cost me an extra $200. I asked why the extra $200. They said because I was changing my flight. They cancelled the damn flight to GRR and it was their position that I am changing the flight. For some reason they would book me to Indy or ORD for nothing extra IIRC. Of course neither of those cities worked.:mad2:
 
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