Adam Smith

I momentarily got very mad at AC earlier today, until I realized it was my own fault for doing something very stupid - will tell the story below.

But it made me wonder, we all have plenty of times when AC/Aeroplan has screwed us over, whether the website not working properly, IRROPs, deflated seats, whatever. But does anyone else have any stories about times we've shot ourselves in the foot? I don't know, bought a ticket for the wrong dates, no-showed because you thought the flight was the next day, whatever.

Here's what prompted me to start this thread: this afternoon, I got notification that AC Fraud Protection had cancelled one of my bookings. I immediately got frustrated when I saw it was a EWR-SIN Aeroplan booking, which is a flight that's tough to find space on. They claimed there was unauthorized use of my form of payment. Which is crazy, because I've had no issues with that CIBC VIP card, having used it just this morning.

I was gearing up to call Aeroplan and try to get it reinstated or whatever (and chew them out while doing so!), until I realized it was cancelled because it was a duplicate booking. I had thought I would be smart in creating one booking for myself and another for my wife so that I could track which PR was used on which booking. But in my rush to complete the two bookings while the space was still there, I accidentally booked both PNRs for myself

So, the communication from AC was poor, because there wasn't an issue with my card, but it was definitely my fault for being an idiot and not, you know, booking for the right people

I can laugh at this because thankfully there was space to make a new booking for my wife, so nothing really lost in the end. But I was pretty annoyed first at AC, then at myself!

Anyone else have funny stories like this?

Stranger

Never that I can recall with AC.

Once however I bought a ticket with United, at pm instead of am. Was much cheaper and I did not notice. Ended up at SFO on standby for the best part of the day.

Couple of times I booked a hotel for the wrong date. Once in Germany, we showed up. They eventually found our reservation, same day but following moth. They did honor it though.

Once in France, prepaid, they would not yield and I had to eat up the loss.

expert7700

Many mistakes.

Most of our self inflicted wounds are not hanging up when I get a less experienced agent. By hour #2 the decision is painful, but becomes a judgment call: start all over with a good agent vs 'how much longer can it be if I wait it out.'

One that comes to mind is how I learned to not make 'far out' placeholder bookings, then uninstall the airline apps during peak Covid. Months fly by, with apps out of sight & out of mind. Was this an 85k point Aeroplan + Etihad lesson? Did I weasel my way into a refund?


Another time was not booking $27,000 in LH F tickets. Aeroplan admitted to a booking error, leading to our F tickets being downgraded by airport staff while we were in UA Polaris in ORD. Aeroplan emailed authorization to reimburse us in full if I could buy them before the flight closed & departed. Instead, we flew the next day. Aeroplan bought cash F tickets without needing us to front the money on our Amex. I could have put the credit card points to good use!
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Sopwith

Several years ago I received a notice from AC out of the blue that someone had used my credit card to book a flight and that they suspected fraud, so they canceled it. I tried to get more details so I could investigate and/or report the fraud, but they refused to give me any additional info. Just left me hanging. Infuriating! There was no other evidence of improper use of the card, and as far as I can recall it wasn't canceled.

mahasamatman

Good to hear AC took the correct and legal course of action.

RangerNS

I've definitely booked a ticket on a wrong day, right time. OPM, but ate the change fee out of my own pocket.

On a 2nd night in YUL on delays, after something like 4 hours looking at snow pile up in front of the Bombardier hangers in a 321, we returned to the terminal. All the concierges had gone home. I booked the on-campus, not terminal Marriot app for "tonight", which by then was past midnight. They were totally sold out when I was at the front desk, until I produced my Ambassador card, and all was fine.

Symmetre

I've booked the wrong day or time too, but I guess that's table stakes for this thread!

Most recent shoot-myself-in-the-foot moment was last fall when my YYZ-YVR flight was delayed and I absolutely had to get there ASAP. Gave up a confirmed upgrade on a 789 to squeeze onto a Max that was scheduled to leave in just 30 minutes. Grudgingly took my middle seat in the exit row ... taxied about halfway to the runway then returned to the terminal as that ship went mechanical. Felt like a complete putz as I watched my original flight depart without me ... felt even worse when we finally got out of YYZ nearly six hours later. Whoops.

Eagle2000

I had a friend that forgot his wallet and passport at home at check in.

Yet he has mad at the AC check in counter agent because he thought she was too curt about it.

Told him it was his fault he should not be mad at the check in agent, perhaps she could have been nicer about.

It's like getting gas at the pump, forgetting your wallet and getting mad at the cashier.

People these days are so entitled.

canopus27

Self-inflicted wounds, eh? Hmmm, so many to choose from.

Given how much I enjoy flying, I really have not missed that many flights ... but there was the one time when I was taking the AC redeye from SFO to YYZ. It had been a long day, and I was relaxing in the united lounge with a glass or two of wine before the flight. The next thing you know, I woke up with a start. After a quick run to the gate, I got to watch my flight just pushing back into the dark. Very scenic.

I also know better than to book connecting flights on different tickets. One of the ways I learned this was when I booked the AC day flight from YYZ-LHR (remember that?), connecting on to some European city on a different ticket. Booking the entire thing on one ticket was so expensive that my company's travel tool wouldn't allow it on AC - but booking two separate tickets (TATL on AC, then an intra-Europe connector) was much cheaper, and within policy. Of course, the AC flight was delayed, and my tight connection turned into a missed connection. Some lessons are expensive to learn.

I think the fact that I didn't get an AC black credit card the moment they were announced, also counts as a self-inflicted wound; I missed out on a chunk of rollovers and additional Covid era perks because of that.

And the lessons continue. Just last fall, I was at about 310K SQM on the year - and decided to do one last European turn in mid-December. Although reaching ~320K would not help me reach any additional thresholds, my motivation was that the extra ~10K miles would rollover and give me a head start on this years totals. Except, of course, you can only rollover a maximum of 200K, so that extra 10K had a significantly reduced value. Doh.

That's the good thing about being simple; there are so many things to learn

InTheAirGuy

Trusting them to always do the right thing.

arno3220

I once missed a flight while basically standing at the gate. This must be 8 or 9 years ago now. I ran into someone I know at the airport, we were on the same flight (which makes this much worse). We started chatting, catching up etc. Next thing I know I look at my watch and think, why haven't we either started boarding, or been notified of a delay? Turns out it was a pretty empty flight, they boarded it in like 5 minutes, apparently paged us (neither of us heard) and left without us. It wasn't the end of the world, we went for a beer and caught the next flight, more embarrassing than anything else.

I've also booked the wrong dates at a hotel, showed up for a conference and had booked only the conference days, not the night before. Hotel had to scramble to make sure the room they had was ok, it was 1AM. I was pretty worried they were going to charge me an absurd amount for that one, but it ended up being less than the conference rate.

zorn

YOW-YUL-MXP. May 2023.

YOW-YUL cancelled. Rebooked YOW-YYZ-LHR-MXP with the final flight on BA.

Mistake #1: I discarded our original boarding passes when I got the new ones.

YYZ-LHR delayed by 90 minutes. Missed LHR-MXP. Rebooked to the late evening flight to MXP.

Because I AM SO SMART I get online and see that we can switch to LHN-LIN. So we line up at BA connections in T5 to ask. They have to call AC ticketing. This takes a while, so the guy tells us to sit over there, and he tells us to just skip the line and see him in 30 minutes. This gives me time to mansplain "co-terminal" to Mrs. Zorn.

Mistake #2: I make a joke that if the UK were to adopt a written constitution, a prohibition against skipping the line would have been its first clause.

We are changed to LHR-LIN and the lady who scans our new boarding passes asks if we have checked bags. We say yes. She says they aren't in their system. She asks for the baggage receipts. They were stuck to the boarding pass I discarded in YOW. She told us to go to customer service in T5 and they would be able to look everything.

Mistake #3: I listened to this woman.

Mistake #4: I didn't just realize that these bags are not my problem. They are AC's problem. Milan is a place where it is possible to purchase clothing.

We go to customer service. Obviously the man has no access to AC's baggage system. He tells us to go back to AC customer service in T2 and they could help.

Mistake #5: I listened to this man.

A manager has to come to permit us to depart T5 and go back on a bus to T2. Eventually we get back to T2. I tell the cat herder guy that we just need to get up to AC customer service landside. He tells us we have to clear security.

Mistake #6: I listened to this man.

We go through security where, for the first time in 3 security checks, they determine that I am carrying a dangerous weapon. But they can't find it in my bag despite the X-Ray machine saying there is something there. This takes quite a while. I exasperatedly say we just need to get landside so I don't know why we are even here, and that we don't even have a T2 boarding pass. They show us the way out.

We get to AC customer service, but all the flights for the day have departed, so there is nobody there. And we have missed out LHR-LIN flight.

So back to T5 to visit BA check-in. The lady there is great but there is nothing she can do. We missed the flight. There is no ticketing desk. So I pull out my phone and book two one way tickets on the very same LHR-MXP flight we were going to be on anyway. After the purchase goes through, I go back to the same lady at check-in who scans my passport, then Mrs. Zorn's. But there's a problem.

Mistake #7: I didn't notice that the phone autocomplete had replaced Mrs. Zorn's name with mine, leaving me with two tickets and her with none.

The lady finally gets through to BA ticketing. They "can't" (i.e. won't) change the name. Now if you know anything about BA, it's that they do not like giving refunds for anything. Apparently they put a note in the file that should get me a refund, but in the end I only got the taxes refunded.

I buy two more tickets and were are finally on our way to Milan.

Once I recover the baggage numbers, it turns out the bags were in Montreal the entire time. Not sure how or why they got there. One bag was delivered after about 3 days. I tried in vain to stop the second from being sent. It arrived at our hotel at about 9pm the night before we due to return.

Misfired_Neurons

I had an Aeroplan redemption flight for United First Class, back when it existed, departing from BRU to YYZ via ORD. My connection from GVA to BRU was delayed resulting in missing the flight. The agents at BRU rebooked me from BRU to YYZ via FRA in LH F, which I was not remotely disappointed about. Arriving in FRA, an agent met me at the gate and I was driven to the international departures area. It was a relatively tight connection but I had about 5 minutes to spend in the lounge.

I took a wrong turn and ended up in the Senator Lounge, which was next to the departure gate, instead of the First Class lounge, which was not particularly close by. Not the end of the world, but I really wanted a rubber duck.

Changeup2000

Had a YYZ - BOS Flex booking confirmed in J. Headed to the security then realized I could not find my passport. It was left on a signature pod I flew the day prior (in the small storage bin). I panicked and cancelled the booking into a future flight credit. I found my passport 15 minutes later in the Air Canada Lost and Found. Now I had to pay 600+ for a new ticket, rather than a 75 fee for a same day change.

Bohemian1

YYZ-BGI quite a while back, pre-Amadeus.

Booked a revenue ticket for me, and one for Ms. Boh on points, both in AC J. Booked fairly far out. At some point I realized that Ms. Boh might lose status if she didn't have one more revenue trip, so I canceled her Aeroplan booking and rebooked as a revenue trip. Or so I thought.

At T-36 or so, I go to check to make sure that the Ticket Numbers and PNRs are correct in Tripit (based on a previous self-inflicted wound). It's then that I notice that I have two tickets for me, and Ms. Boh now has zero. Much panic, much calling, and eventually I just cancelled her ticket and rebooked using points.

I told her about all of this a month or two later when I booked a MR to maintain her status.