Most travelers would probably say they aren’t worried about a crackdown on duplicate bookings. But new software being developed by the Airline Reporting Corporation and soon to be tested by American Airlines may complicate the life of innocent travelers as the airline trawls for travelers breaking the airline’s arcane ticketing rules.
Most travel agents, on the other hand, have more than a few stories of about potential problems with double bookings and can easily see where this new software may hit innocent travelers and make their travels even more complex than it already is today.
There is the client who asks for a booking, after they apparently booked the same thing with at least one other agency. (Which agents don’t find out until the airline involved either calls or cancels the duplicate.) My personal record several years ago was a client referral who had identical flights booked five times. Presumably in hopes of getting a better fare.
Sometimes, to be fair, the client asks for a price rather than specifically asking for a booking. But as almost all agents know, without holding space, giving an exact price is nearly impossible, since the space can sell out overnight, or even within an hour. So an agent might make a reservation, just to avoid that problem. And not all clients will admit they are shopping different agencies.
A litany of possible duplicate tickets, real and imagined
The airlines also consider it a duplicate when a traveler tries to use two round-trip tickets and throw away the second half of each to get a better fare. Since the airlines are now billing travel agents for that kind of ticket game, most agencies have stopped playing it. Although a truly savvy client will book one ticket through an agency, and another through a different agency or online, which helps keep them from getting caught.
Unfortunately, another potential duplicate is when people with similar names are on the same flight. American Airlines, in particular, has a program that once caught a so-called duplicate when I had a Sarah Brown booked on the same flight as some other agency had a booking for a Sally Brown. And it took a long phone call with the sales office to make the internal changes to keep American from canceling Sarah Brown’s ticketed record.
In addition, passengers traveling with children who are “juniors” can sometimes trip the system. Not to mention when there actually are two people with the same name.
And all of these possible cases of duplicate-booking confusion, fairly or not, are probably about to get worse.
Dragnet duplicate-booking software and “revenue recovery”
ARC, the Airline Reporting Corporation, (translation, the airline bank which processes agency transactions) is working with American Airlines on a new “revenue recovery tool.” They hope to get other airlines on board, and claim the technology will be able to identify duplicate bookings in “virtual real time across multiple distribution channels.”
So what does this translate to in plain English? The new system is designed to catch any duplicate, and will look at both travel agent and airline computers. It will also potentially catch – even before ticketing – when a traveler makes two bookings with different carriers.
And “revenue recovery” means that the airlines will almost certainly go after offenders with a penalty. American Airline’s Revenue Management director, Rick Elieson stated. “Whether the result of booking error, or conscious manipulation,” these duplicate bookings “cost our airline huge sums of money.”
No one is quite sure, however, exactly what those “revenue recovery” plans are. Currently, if an agent now makes a what a carrier considers a duplicate booking, whether in error or because a client keeps canceling and rebooking the same trip, the airline involved can and sometimes will bill the travel agency.
And due to the contracts between airlines and agents, if the agency cannot convince the airline to waive the charge, the carrier can threaten agencies with, “Pay, or lose the ability to book our flights.”
Now if a traveler books online, collecting a penalty may be more difficult, although if the airline has a credit card to hold a booking, presumably they can debit the credit card, or take away frequent flier miles.
Delayed back-to-back ticketing
It’s not just the pre-planned back-to-back tickets that airlines don’t like. Another potential source of “lost revenue” for airlines comes into play when travelers buy a new discounted ticket to change their return when faced with a change in plans.
Here’s an example. A passenger books a round-trip ticket cross-country, say, San Francisco to Philadelphia. And then decides a day or two in advance that they want to change the return date. Or, maybe, they want to return from New York instead of Philadelphia. For many airlines, the rule says passengers must recalculate the entire ticket cost plus pay a $150 penalty. Which often means passengers might be paying a higher overall fare.
But, there are many discount one-way tickets between JFK to San Francisco these days, in some cases even less than the $150 penalty. Rather than follow airline rules, many savvy travelers book a new return separately, and just don’t use the original return half of your ticket.
Technically, that’s against the way the airlines want passengers to play the game. American Airlines probably will be using their new duplicate booking software to catch scofflaws who book both tickets with American. However, if passengers book a different carrier, the airlines don’t have a way to catch it.
A potential threat to honest travelers
The potential of these kinds of double booking examples and problems are endless. Even if passengers are unlikely to have the same name as someone else booked on their flight, how much work is it going to be for them, or their travel agent, to straighten things out if they get flagged by mistake? The odds of a similar name on the exact same flight might be slim, but the odds of someone else with the same name flying between the same cities and the same date, are a lot higher. The odds increase dramatically of getting ensnared in this duplicate-booking dragnet when the return flights are scanned over several days.
ARC says the system will use “sophisticated technology” and be able to differentiate between people with the same or similar name. But as anyone who’s ever dealt with an airline computer error knows, over-optimism about computer capabilities rule. And mistakes tend not to favor the traveler.
For now, this new “revenue recovery tool” remains a work in progress, and perhaps as American Airlines and ARC continue to work on the software, more and more potential errors will be eliminated. But, if I had to predict, my sense is that though the program may or may not bring the airlines significant new revenue, it is very likely to bring consumers and travel agents significant new hassles.
{ 10 comments… read them below or add one }
As usual, Janice, you have hit the nail right on the head with your last paragraph. More work for the TA and more problems for the consumer.
Just a new revenue stream for the airlines since they will be debiting agencies for supposed duplicate bookings.
Although one situation you describe is “churning” and good Travel Agents have cut that our a long time ago – I don’t allow clients to “churn” – all tickets are set in my system (Apollo) to cancel at the ticketing deadline if they are not ticketed. A client who misses said deadline and then calls later to re-book is booked in an entirely new PNR (record) and takes his/her chance that the fare has not gone up. Agian, there will be an autocancel in there on the appropriate date/time.
If American spent as much money improving their service as they are apparently going to spend trying to snare passengers into their exhorbitant change fees they would probably make more money in the long haul!
Why do we allow the airlines to limit our choices as consumers? With today’s fewer flights, and with the likelihood of standbys using many of the seats that are not filled at the last moment, their claim of losing large amounts of revenue are suspect at best. Regarding back to back tickets, the airline has been paid for the second flight on each ticket. Often, but probably not always, they can sell the unused seat at the last minute, most probably for a higher fare. How is this losing revenue? Just another example of planned gouging by the greedy airlines!! If they aren’t making money, then raise the fares. Frequent travellers will understand, and the once a year traveller will simply have to accept the reality.
Odds of 2 different people being snared in the web are pretty good. I read that they will look for duplicates on different airlines at different times. I would guess that the chances of 2 people with the same name traveling between NY and Wash DC on any given day are pretty good. I, like you, Janice, am skeptical that this will be in the interests of passengers or in the long run airlines, since they will have to deal with the consequences of correcting errors.
I have a relatively common name, and I am often caught up in poorly designed name matching algorithms (TSA’s algorithm for flagging passengers requiring extra screening is one of them). And I am disgusted by the Airlines’ continued attempts to nickel-dime us….
If I buy a ticket and not use it, the seat should be vacant – and the airline gets the savings of carrying a seat full of air to the plane’s next destination. Why should they care if I buy a second, more valuable ticket later on, if the empty seat has been paid for? They have already captured the (possibly non-refundable) revenue….
Of course, the airlines (as a group) wants us to think prices are lower than they are to travel. So they come up with schemes to artificially depress published ticket prices without decreasing the costs of traveling which consumers must pay. And as a result, I have avoided discretionary flying for several years, traveling on Southwest or JetBlue whenever possible. (I’d rather pay an honestly priced fare, than to be hit with a lot of surcharges and extra fees for standard service.) Heck, I even travel Amtrak along the Northeastern Corridor now – as I don’t have to put up with the security headaches of the post 9/11 world….
If the major airlines want my business back, they will have to return to the honest pricing policies of the past, and drop the “al a carte” price model now in vogue. And I don’t think I’m alone in this. It’ll be a happy day for me when the next major carrier goes bankrupt – as maybe, just maybe, we’ll finally see a major go out of business – removing both the extra capacity, and pressure on the rest of the players to present artificially low fares to the traveling public.
Chris
Not sure if AA has already implemented this software, but I did get called this week. I fly about 3-4 trips a month and do about 150,000 miles on AA/year, and have to occasionally ditch the return portion of a flight.
I have a round trip to Vegas scheduled by a client for next week. Another client needed me in Orlando, and the only way I could make the second meeting was to fly directly there not using the return portion of the first ticket. AA called me and asked me which flight I was taking; the return portion, or the one way.. I told them I cannot cancel the return portion unless I take the outbound leg, and they seemed to understand. Strange I have to modify my return portion about 10 times a year, and have never gotten called previously.
Mark
If the airline cancels a legitimate reservation because of its computer’s mistake then the airline should compensate the passenger, or better yet forcibly rebook the passenger when he shows up, and ask for volunteers if needed.
the airlines would be so much better off if they let the traveling public deal with these ridiculous rules in a way that we could to take advantage of the rules. whats wrong with a “back to back?” why dont they like money they WILL be getting instead of the money they wont get? if I could get a b2b for $300 total instead of $1000 or more, I would fly, if not, I dont go or I drive and they get nada.
the airlines with the ludicrous fare rules are killing themselves. go back to SIMPLE fares. One way is one way. round trip is 2 one ways. and get rid of the sat night stay! why should that be cheaper??????