So how much influence do TAs (and FF status) have over airlines??

[2muchplastic]

First of all the story:

Sat at work this morning, getting all my stuff together for my next trip leaving Sunday, printing itineraries, hotel reservations, e-tick....ah. Problem. Flight not ticketed.
Ok, so jump on Singapore Airlines website to see if it says the same or if the Corporate TA (and I won't name them) is wrong.
Now a BIG problem, I have no booking. It is not there. The PNR I have from the Corp TA has disappeared from "my bookings". So get on the phone to my admin lady, and get her to voice my displeasure at the Corp TA.
The bad news is that the Corp TA had forgotten to ticket my flights on time, and as a consequence SQ had cancelled the booking. The worse news is that the original flights booked outbound are now full in J. OK, so the new choices are transfer to a new flight, and have to leave home at 0630 on Sunday morning to catch it (not possible as I have plans for the Sunday as I was previously booked on the 2345 flight), or take one of the 4 remaining seats in Y on the original flight (arrive SGN 0855).

An overnight Y flight does not fill me with glee knowing that I would be going straight to the office for a 12 hour+ day. (And before I get a torrent of abuse about how I must be a poor delicate flower not being able fly Y overnight and then work the next day, my company allows J flights on 6 hour + flights, and this is what was booked.)
So anyway I opted for the Y flight at the original time, with the assurance that they would waitlist a J seat (and as I was a Gold Elite, would be given number 1 priority. Apparently.....), and had spoken to Singapore Airlines Head Office to emphasise the priority, presumably in recognition that it was the Corp TA who had screwed up. However, my travel admin lady had found out that all 30 J seats were ticketed, and the only real possibility was a no-show on the night.

However, a couple of hours later, the waitlist cleared, and I was back to where I thought I was in the first place.

So, (after all that rambling) I'm intrigued. Would the TA have had that much influence with the airline to be able to "bump" a seat somehow to save their embaressment?
Or is it just SQ have tried to look after a Gold FF?

Or was it just a pure fluke that someone has cancelled a ticketed booking just at the same time the TA was trying to reinstate one?

Or will there be some poor little flyer sitting in Y wanting to stab me in the back with a plastic knife????

 

[Evan]

Sure, on CX i rang and asked for a seat to be made available that i was wait listed on, my corp TA could not do it and was amazed they released it for me. (I am QF WP, but i do fly CX a reasonable amount)
E

 

[Leumas]

Every TA set up is different, and corporate TA may well be different from your retail TA, e.g., Flight Centre. Also, travel companies often have a separate ticketing department, which no matter how good your agent is, if the relationship between your agent and the ticketing department is not great or if the ticketing department isn't getting along with the airline in question, things may not go your way.

I've organised a few xONE tickets where the agent could only get me on the waitlist for some flights. However, as soon as the agent attachs my FF number (and therefore status) with the booking, the waitlist will clear in no more than 24 hours (often this is purely due to time zone differences).

You may also apply the same theory with seat selections too. Perhaps I was just lucky on that occasion, but despite being a WP, I can never get anything on row 16 on a 747 (despite many of you saying you can) with my TA or even by ringing QFF. The only successful occasion was when I booked through CX in CMB.

 

[stryker]

You may also apply the same theory with seat selections too. Perhaps I was just lucky on that occasion, but despite being a WP, I can never get anything on row 16 on a 747 (despite many of you saying you can) with my TA or even by ringing QFF. The only successful occasion was when I booked through CX in CMB.

I must say I've never understood why people continue to enthuse about airlines where you can't select your seat on booking.