Airline-imposed changes to DONEx exceeds 16 sectors - what to do?

[JohnM]

Hi all

I have booked a DONE4 later in the year, using the full 16 sectors.

I have just received notification from QF that AA has cancelled my JFK-SXM flight and substituted JFK-xMIA-SXM and I've been asked to go online and confirm it.

It's no drama for me but that makes two different flight numbers to get from origin to destination and therefore brings the total sectors to 17. Technically, that's in breach of the DONEx rules but the system shows no conflict.

Has anyone had experience of this before? Do I click 'Confirm' and assume all will be good?

 

[Danger]

Yes. And it's not overly unusual. Seventeen (or even more) sectors is perfectly fine, provided you're not the one causing it.

 

[MTAB]

Yes, you will find Qantas quite helpful if there's a problem. At least I have.

Last year Mrs MTAB and I did an AUK to AUK LONE 4 with 16 flights (much cheaper than an Oz based one even with the separately bought extra CNS to AUK and AUK to CNS connection fairs). The direct LAX to AUK was changed to a LAX to SYD and SYD to AUK (ie 17 flights). This could have stayed, but I phoned them and they full refunded my AUK to CNS (via BNE) flight; booked with no booking fee a SYD to CNS flight and we then got off at SYD (put the SYD to AUK into the future in case we might use it) and came out very happy travelers.

Our RTW had a few other conniptions thanks to Malev folding and also due to a stuff-up at Madrid (my seat was there but Mrs MTAB's wasn't, and the flight was full and leaving in 45 minutes with no other MAD-DUB connection for a day!!) but again the Qantas people were simply terrific and sorted out everything (the Madrid one being fixed at about 3:00 am Oz time 20 minutes before boarding after many unhelpful calls to BA and Iberia). I was platinum at the time so that might have helped. I am now gold but will hit lifetime gold at the end of this month. However, I have always found the Qantas people very efficient and helpful (aren't I the lucky one).

 

[moa999]

Should be OK, but you may have trouble changing routing if needing to reissue.
If no changes should be OK, but I would be keeping the paperwork on me.

 

[JohnM]

Thanks, folks.

I've had plenty of instances in the past on DONEx's where flight cancellations have happened and they've substituted a different time on the same route. But this is the first where the whole route has been removed, necessitating a connection.

There are some advantages in what they've done. JFK-SXM was in D but now JFK-MIA will be in A and MIA-SXM is D. Adds a few more SCs and points to the tally .

 

[simongr]

My first thought when I read this was "just think about the extra SCs"

 

[codash1099]

My first thought when I read this was "just think about the extra SCs"

A true AFF reaction

 

[ozbeachbabe]

Hi all

I have booked a DONE4 later in the year, using the full 16 sectors.

When you say "booked" has the eticket been issued yet? It's better for you if there are schedule changes after ticket issuance resulting in you being voluntarily re-routed as sometimes if you only have an unticketed reservations you'll get the "too bad so sad" result.

 

[JohnM]

When you say "booked" has the eticket been issued yet? It's better for you if there are schedule changes after ticket issuance resulting in you being voluntarily re-routed as sometimes if you only have an unticketed reservations you'll get the "too bad so sad" result.

Yes, the eticket has been issued so it seems that it is now AA's responsibility to get me where I was going.

It's vacation; I'm cool with it .

 

[MTAB]

Just remembered something about our 16 flight LONE4 which, due to no fault of mine had to be turned into a 17 flight one. There was some technical issue with Qantas re-issuing a DONE4 ticket with 17 flights so after some exploration and thought by the very helpful Qantas staff they issued me a DONE4 covering flights 1 to 16 and then some weeks after we had commenced our RTW they issued a new DONE4 ticket covering flights 2 to 17.

With this as with everything else Qantas were very efficient and helpful.

You may wish to get AA to start early with the re-issue of your 17 flight ticket in case they encounter a similar technical limitation on their system.

 

[JohnM]

Just remembered something about our 16 flight LONE4 which, due to no fault of mine had to be turned into a 17 flight one. There was some technical issue with Qantas re-issuing a DONE4 ticket with 17 flights so after some exploration and thought by the very helpful Qantas staff they issued me a DONE4 covering flights 1 to 16 and then some weeks after we had commenced our RTW they issued a new DONE4 ticket covering flights 2 to 17.

With this as with everything else Qantas were very efficient and helpful.

You may wish to get AA to start early with the re-issue of your 17 flight ticket in case they encounter a similar technical limitation on their system.

Good point - thanks. My understanding is that the e-ticket system only handles a maximum of 16 sectors and it was the reason for the old 20-sector paper-ticket XONEx's disappearing :evil:. I did many a 20-sector DONEx (and an AONEx in the final year of the 20-sector deal); they were very productive because it was easy to fit in 6 nice long AA sectors .

I booked and confirmed the DONE4 online from Australia, so the payment went to QF and it's a QF issued e-ticket.

I'll get into my account and click 'Confirm' and wait to see what, if anything, happens but I'll be alert to screw-ups because of the extra sector. I don't travel for quite a while so there's time to watch and wait to see how the system seems to handle it.

 

[JohnM]

I have clicked the 'Confirm' button, so now my DONE4 has 17 sectors. So far, so good.

There is one other puzzling thing that someone may have an explanation for.

When I log into my QF account, the itinerary shows 'Flight 1' to 'Flight 10'. Some of those 'flights' are made up of 2, 3 or 4 sectors, not necessarily on the same day or even the same airline, although the clusters are sequential sectors.

All 17 sectors show on that PNR, which was the original PNR of the reservation. Two other PNRs also appeared soon after the reservation was confirmed with sub-sets of the intinerary.

I'm presuming the original PNR is the 'master' PNR with the two others being artefacts of BA and CX reservations, as that's where they seem to pick up on the overall sequence.

It's all rather confusing. Does anyone have knowledge or experience of how these things play out or of managing them?

 

[NM]

There is one other puzzling thing that someone may have an explanation for.

When I log into my QF account, the itinerary shows 'Flight 1' to 'Flight 10'. Some of those 'flights' are made up of 2, 3 or 4 sectors, not necessarily on the same day or even the same airline, although the clusters are sequential sectors.

When looking at the QFF web site via Manage My Booking, you are only seeing the reservation as it relates to QF's Armedeus computer system. It will only show the QF segments and any "connecting" or "adjacent" segments that are needed for their information purposes. It is normal for these types of multi-airline tickets to not show all segments in the QF on-line reservation system.