Changing Reward Airline Tickets…some useful tips

January 31, 2010

Last week I flew to Tucson from Vancouver on a ticket earned on points from Continental Airlines. There were no hitches going down but the same cannot be said for the return. I didn’t reconfirm the return portion of the ticket before going to the airport which I’ll usually do for overseas flights but not for flights within Canada and the US. That was my mistake. Reconfirm. Always. Most of us check in online 24 hours ahead of time now, but I didn’t have that option or I would have known that there was going to be trouble.

The bottom line was that the flight had been changed and I had never received any notification of that change. The flight we should now have been on had left hours ago and no others were scheduled, let alone available for almost 24 hours. In a smaller airport like Tucson you have fewer options but this is what I learned.

  1. Get the ticket agent on your side. You’re going to need an ally. In our case we dealt with a Delta agent who initially gave us a rough time but who in the end saved the day!! This was really a Continental Airlines problem but if you get the right airline agent they’ll get the problem solved. Be patient, friendly and courteous.
  2. Once you have begun your journey, despite all the rhetoric, airlines can and will make changes to the routing, though not the final destination. I was supposed to have returned via Salt Lake City but in the end that was of no consequence whatsoever.
  3. Know the partner airlines of the issuer of the ticket. In this case I knew that Continental was now part of the Star Alliance so routing on those flights was a possibilty.
  4. Be prepared to take matters into your own hands. Check out the departures board and look for all flights on partner airlines heading in the general direction of where you’re going. Then get your ticket agent ally to check connections and availability.
  5. Finally ask the ticket agent to PUSH your ticket to the airline you want to fly on. I checked to make sure that US Airways would accept the ‘pushed’ ticket and once I had the OK from them it was a 2 minute matter of writing up an old fashioned paper ticket, though the Delta agent did need a supervisor to approve the transaction.  (The other word for this type of transaction is a FIM or Flight Interruption Manifest. It is a document issued by an airline as a substitute ticket for passengers experiencing irregularities during travel when the original ticket is not available. A FIM is generally issued at a gate, ticket counter or transit desk by an airline agent and will note their original routing and ticket numbers, as well as those of the new routing, thereby making the FIM the new ticket. A FIM is only valid for a specific flight on a new airline that is not the airline the ticket was originally issued with. For example, a Delta gate agent could produce a FIM for a flight on United and send the data to United. The FIM would then be accepted as a regular ticket on the specified United flight. (source – Wikipedia))

If you’re flying with a regular, purchased ticket versus one bought via points, you’ll find that the ticket agent has alot more leeway in what they can do for you. However, if customer service really is a priority then they’ll still find a way to get you on your way. Delta Airlines was terrific, sympathetic and creative and in my case Continental Airlines was far more concerned with using reward seats than in getting me to my final destination even though I spent just shy of 2 hours on the phone!!

Save yourself some frustration next time you have a flight problem with a ticket purchased on points and remember PUSH and FIM and with luck you won’t be waiting hours on a phone for nothing. Happy flying!

Leigh McAdam

www.hikebiketravel.com

Posted by Hike Bike Travel | Filed Under Miscellaneous travel tips 

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