Problem with NWA award flight (on MH)

[opusman]

Howdy,

I had a bunch of Worldperks points that I was never going to use so I booked (through NWA) a MH ADL/LHR trip for my Dad a few months ago. Today he fronted at the airport only to be told that the flight had been booked but not ticketed properly. Apparently it took over 2 hours (with him standing at the MH counter the whole time) to fix the problem and he made the flight by 10 minutes.

Just wondering if anyone knows exactly what could have gone wrong? Now that they've presumably "fixed" it (as he was, in the end, able to board) is that likely to be the end of the problems or is it possible he'll face this issue every time he checks in on this trip?

Cheers!
Jon

 

[davi]

Hey Opusman

I don't know why that problem would happen but from previous experience with MH, it could be anything, maybe inexperienced staff in Adelaide? Or the processing of the points. As anyone who flies MH know, they don't have e tickets and you normally wait till the last day for your old school cardboard to be ready at the travel agent.
I checked into a flight from Adelaide to KL with MH late last year and forgot to produce my enrich card at check in. Once I had realised, I went to the gateside desk and two staff (contracted out from Qantas I believe) tried patiently for 10 minutes to check my details through. Even with the MH instruction manual they couldn't figure it out on the system - apparantley Qantas can easily do it at any point.

Coming back from KL I sat next to a guy that had booked an updgrade to business class only to be told at the gate that they had no record of it.
Whilst I generally think MH have quite good in flight service, I have learned not to expect everything to be right all of the time because it just isn't the case. :-|

 

[Travel Guru]

Hey Opusman

I don't know why that problem would happen but from previous experience with MH, it could be anything, maybe inexperienced staff in Adelaide? Or the processing of the points. As anyone who flies MH know, they don't have e tickets and you normally wait till the last day for your old school cardboard to be ready at the travel agent.
I checked into a flight from Adelaide to KL with MH late last year and forgot to produce my enrich card at check in. Once I had realised, I went to the gateside desk and two staff (contracted out from Qantas I believe) tried patiently for 10 minutes to check my details through. Even with the MH instruction manual they couldn't figure it out on the system - apparantley Qantas can easily do it at any point.

Coming back from KL I sat next to a guy that had booked an updgrade to business class only to be told at the gate that they had no record of it.
Whilst I generally think MH have quite good in flight service, I have learned not to expect everything to be right all of the time because it just isn't the case. :-|

Actually MH finally ran out of their stock of paper tickets and are now issuing E-Tickets.

They were probably one of the last to do so, but word has it someone stuffed up a ticket order and added an extra couple of zeros on the order which is why theyve been so insistent on using paper tickets until the last minute before IATA's deadline.

TG