If you want this to be the quickest blog read ever then just take the following message to heart and go on to something else:
Always reconfirm airline reservations!
Would you care to know why you should? Then you have to click on Continue reading below.
A recent tale of woe posted by Christopher Elliott (I recommended his blog a while back) reminded me of something Ive impressed upon my friends for years: reconfirmation of reservations should be as automatic a part of your travel routine as packing a toothbrush. As we enter the busy holiday travel period this post is particularly relevant for travelers who booked travel months ago.
I guess Im assuming you know what I mean by reconfirming but just so there isnt any confusion, it means verifying your reservations on-line or (better) over the phone directly with the airline(s) youre flying on. If you are doing more than just a one-way trip, then it means reconfirming prior to each leg of travel.
Over the years the airlines have deemphasized or even discouraged passengers from reconfirming flight reservations. But in fact, it used to be mandatory for international travel, and for all I know, in the very distant past it may have been for domestic travel, too.
Why do you need to do this?
The simplest answer is stuff happens.
But dear reader, you demand to know more and Im just the fellow to tell you. Youre going to get some history both personal and travel industry to help explain.
When I worked for Northwest Airlines in their L.A. reservations office between 1979 and 1982, I was sometimes pulled off of the phones in order to work queues. In non-airline language, that meant I stared into a computer screen looking at reservations that Northwest Airlines had mangled in some way. Typically it was a flight cancellation sometimes on very short notice (like that day) – but otherwise it was days, weeks or even months in advance. My job was to contact the passenger in order to arrange an agreeable flight replacement for the canceled service.
In theory and I emphasize in theory the airlines of today are supposed to do that, too. Whether they still do and how consistently I havent a clue. (If you have a story about experiences like this please comment back for everyone to read.) What I do know is that the airline industry has taken a giant hit over these many years, largely in staffing. Whether the industry as a whole or individual carriers follow through on their responsibility to notify passengers is not clear. (I do know from personal experience that United made no attempt to notify me about a canceled Washington Dulles-SFO flight early this year.)
The question gets more complex when you book through a travel agent. The airline computer systems are supposed to notify the travel agent about canceled flights or schedule changes. The travel agent in turn is supposed to contact you and then in concert with a typically difficult-to-work-with airline figure out a substitute. (A thankless task for a travel agent, believe me.)
It doesnt always work.
To understand you need a basic understanding of the technical underpinnings of the industry.
Four far-reaching computerized reservations systems (now called global distribution systems) are used by nearly all of the airlines and travel agencies in the world: Sabre, Apollo/Galileo, Worldspan, and Amadeus. Some fine day Ill write a post about their history. To me and other sick puppies out there like me, its actually interesting.
If you booked through a travel agency (bricks-and-mortar such as Sallys On The Go Travel or on-line such as Expedia) your airline reservation was confirmed through whichever system the travel agency subscribes to. However the airline the travel agency booked may use a different system so the two systems have to communicate to notify each other of changes to the reservation.
For example, you may have made your United Airlines reservation through Travelocity. United Airlines uses Apollo as its in-house system but Travelocity uses Sabre, I believe. In a perfect world, if United canceled one of your flights a month in advance Apollo would send Sabre a message informing Travelocity of the flight cancellation. Sometimes alternate service is programmatically confirmed, other times it is not. The reservation then falls onto a queue of messed up reservations which a computer application or human works through. At that point Travelocity should either inform you via e-mail or by phone about the changes to your itinerary or ask you to contact them. If you worked with a bricks-and-mortar agency such as Sallys you would probably be contacted by a real live travel agent who will explain whats going on.
Most of the time the system works OK but you can see by this example that the system has several hoops technical and often human it must jump through for you to be notified and confirmed on new flights in the event of changes to what you originally booked.
This is where reconfirming comes into play. If you just show up at the airport and assume that your flights are exactly the way you booked them seven days, seven weeks, or seven months ago, you are putting your faith in a flawlessly operated technological and human system. Thats admirable but foolish, and especially so in such a disorderly era with airlines cutting back flights, first because of the ballooning cost of fuel and now due to the reduced demand caused by the global recession.
The technology does not always work as it should and people do drop the ball. You can protect yourself against this by always reconfirming.
If you booked your flights directly with the airline (on-line or over the phone) it should be enough to check your reservation on-line. But if anything looks funny or there is a message to contact the airline by all means do so, even if it means you have to sit on hold for 20 minutes. (I prefer to call the airline to reconfirm even though I booked on-line.) No airline that I know of has yet added a fee for reconfirming reservations hallelujah!
If you booked your flights with a travel agent (on-line or bricks-and-mortar) then you need to call the airline, period. And if you are connecting between different carriers (e.g. youre flying United from Sacramento to Chicago and connecting with Lufthansa to fly to Munich you need to call each carrier directly.
Why is this so important?
If flights have been canceled or operating times drastically altered, you may easily miss your connection or find out there is nothing to connect to. (Heres another link to Elliots post to which I referred early. If you haven’t read it yet you really should. It’s a classic example of a situation in which a passenger could have saved incredible bother by simply reconfirming.)
While its no picnic to find out about a cancellation or major schedule change 24, 48 or 72 hours in advance, its way, way, WAY more desirable than to find out about it at the airport from a frustrated, underpaid airline employee.
When you call an airlines res office you are dealing one-on-one with a res agent in a call center far removed from the bedlam of an airport. He or she is not being yelled at by other unhappy passengers. Besides the lower emotional temperature for all concerned, finding out about a slip-up before getting to the airport increases the chances that an acceptable substitute can be found to get you to your destination.
It’s not just canceled flights you need to be concerned with. Schedule changes can wreak havoc on a trip.
There is a very specific term in the travel industry called “minimum connecting time”. There are precise, published rules that spell out in great detail the minimum time necessary between flights for a “legal connection”. It varies from airport to airport, airline to airline, and type of flight (domestic or international). Even online (same carrier) connections at one airport may employ different minimum connecting times depending on what terminal the flights operate from or whether it’s a domestic or international connection.
You don’t need to be concerned about this when booking because the systems will only serve up connections that conform to the rules but when schedule changes impact existing reservations trouble can ensue. To bring this back to the subject of reconfirming, you do not want to show up at the airport on the day of travel, check in and be told that you now have an “illegal connection” and the airline cannot check luggage for you or possibly not even board you.
So when you reconfirm, compare what you see (or hear from an agent) with the original e-mail or printed itinerary you received when you made the reservations. When connecting times are shorter than they were originally, it should be a red flag. If you have any concerns then you should ask the agent if it is still a legal connection. If it no longer is legal, then it is the airline’s responsibility to fix it.
As I said you should always reconfirm each step of the way. If youre flying round-trip from Chico to Boston, then you should reconfirm before you leave Chico and again before you leave Boston. And when you call in Boston to reconfirm, ask the res agent if the airline has local contact information for you. If it doesnt, then provide a cell-phone or hotel phone.
You should give them destination contact information when you make the reservation, if you already know it. (Be sure when you supply a cell-phone that you have coverage there.) That way if there is a last-minute change to your flights while youre at your destination the airline at least has the ability to contact you. They may or may not call, but if they try to do so they cant say later that they didnt have a means of reaching you.
Maybe you lead a charmed life. Youll never be inconvenienced by a canceled flight and youll never ever reconfirm and youll think its a waste of time to even do so. Then again, maybe one time youll reconfirm and find out 3 days in advance about a cancellation of your Air France flight from San Francisco to Paris that you should have been notified about but werent. Thankfully by reconfirming, you found out, and Air France rebooked you on a different schedule that same day on Delta. All of the other times when you sat on hold for 5 minutes reconfirming flights that were just fine will seem well worth it.
Ill close with a story from my Northwest Airlines res agent days circa 1981 that is icing on the cake. If this doesnt convince you to reconfirm then nothing will.
A passenger called to check on previously booked and ticketed flights to Rochester from Los Angeles. Ill reconstruct the likely dialogue that took place.
Passenger: Id like to reconfirm my reservations to Rochester.
Me: Yes, we have you confirmed on Northwest flight such-and-such from Los Angeles to Minneapolis/St. Paul connecting with Northwest flight blah-blah-blah to Rochester, Minnesota.
Passenger: Rochester, Minnesota?!
Me: Yes, Rochester, Minnesota.
Passenger: But I thought I had booked flights to Rochester, New York?
Me: No, Im sorry, maam. Northwest doesnt fly to Rochester, New York, only to Rochester, Minnesota.
Clearly the res agent with whom she originally booked this did not take the trouble to make sure that the Rochester she wanted to fly to was in Minnesota, not New York. (I guess the agent missed that part of the training class that stressed saying the city and state when dealing with cities that have the same name such as Rochester, Portland and Springfield.)
I dont remember what happened after that and you cant blame me because some of you reading this now werent even born in 1981 but at least she found out she wasnt going to where she thought she was going before she got to the airport. Let’s hope things got straightened out and at this very moment she’s writing a post where she’s extolling the virtues of reconfirming, citing as evidence this very same story from her perspective.
Moral of this post? Always reconfirm.
I started out in the Fall of 1966 with North Central in Chicago and transferred in 1978 to Omaha, Nebraska where the airline became Republic Airlines the following year. I remember with fond memories the late Sunday evening when 18 new recruits got off the inbound flight from Minneapolis headed for Norfolk, NE to their new naval Base for Basic Training. Having enjoyed Geography while in grade school and born with more common sense than most folks with an eye for details, I knew that Nebraska was a landlocked state and would not or should not have a naval base.
I had two choices. I could hustle (in 15 minutes) to get them back on board the aircraft they just got off of back to Minneapolis, rewrite all their paper tickets on a FIM (Flight Interruption Manifest ) then run out on to the ramp and look for, pull their duffels out of the transfer cart for the flight to Norfolk, NE (OFK), Retag them all for Norfolk VA (ORF) and rebook them in the last available seats on the connecting flight out of the Twin Cities (MSP) (They seemed happy that they would get a 2nd dinner on the flight back to the twin cities.)
Or I could play dumb knowing the only agent on duty in Norfolk who also worked the car rental counter would have no choice but to deal with trying to find over night arrangements and 18 seats on the packed Monday morning flight that originated up line on its way back to Omaha.
It was called doing the right thing.
Back when airline agents both in Reservations as well as at the airports were paid a living wage. We cared about our customers and our airline. Thats not the case today with attorneys at the helms of the few remaining carriers driving the airlines into the ground and blaming the workers.
Oh yes . I worked my share of QUEUES when we werent busy sending flights out , taking baggage claims or dealing with oversales. We called them CRUDS.
Remember Rule 75 & Rule 240? That seem to work when all else failed.
After leaving Northwest (35.5 years) I went to work for a Call Center handling a brand new company called Orbitz.com and found out quickly how inexperienced the new employees really were when acting as “Agents” for this internet company. Many times seats were released and the phone agent wasnt able to put the Q or K seat back when the customer changed his mind because of cost or fees and most unfortunately wasnt told either. I witness first hand agents taking out of inventory the remaining Y (full coach) or F (First Class) seats not knowing or caring that the passenger would have to cough up the difference at check in on day of departure.
I worked the “Help Desk” and found myself putting long hours in trying to correct the mistakes made until management decided overtime was to STOP.
The job lasted 18 months before it was handed off to another company call center. I believe the Bottom line was the almighty Dollar due to mistakes made that ran into the millions because of fees, fare differences and customer goodwill expenses.
Stuff Happens ? You Bet !
Perhaps better training and better pay for the agents would have made a difference ?
But Im glad Im not working at the airport any longer.
I have thus far lived a quite charmed life and only experienced minor delays and thankfully no cancellations. However, I feel my luck wearing thin and am heeding your warning for my upcoming flight in January. Just wondering if you have a recommendation for the sweet spot as far as when to confirm – leaving enough time to potentially change many aspects of your plans, but minimizing the time that the airline has to still cancel. 72 hours?
Will, Thanks for the great comment! I enjoyed your account of the 18 recruits going to Norfolk, NE and not Norfolk, VA, which should have been their destination.
I completely agree that the airline industry has been on a downward spiral of lower pay resulting in a less motivated and therefore less qualified staff.
My first job in the industry was with TWA res in SFO in 1979.
At 23 I was one of the two youngest hires among a group mostly with college degrees (including at least one M.A.) and lots of real life experience. I felt honored to be a part of this crew.
TWA took two months to thoroughly train us including some basic knowledge of international fare construction (FCUs, mileage vs. routing fares, etc.) We were very well qualified by the time we hit the phones.
Sadly we were laid off at the end of the summer and the SFO res office closed not too long after that.
My experiences since then both in and outside of the industry point to degraded training. The computer systems are more sophisticated but the agents are poorly trained and poorly compensated. It’s not an even trade.
Your experience at Orbitz doesn’t surprise me at all. Sad. Over the past 25-30 years or so we’ve witnessed the deprofessionalization of an industry.
Thanks for the comment and question, Robert.
There is no magic number although I did use the example of 3 days (or 72 hours) a couple of times in my examples.
To some extent it depends on your destination and airline. If you’re flying Southwest between, say Sacramento and LAX, you’re probably fine just calling a day or two in advance unless something in the news leads you to be concerned. In markets like this where the airline is stable and there are many flights operating it’s probably a safe bet that nothing too awful is likely to happen that can’t be fixed since the carrier can put you another flight pretty easily.
If you’re traveling internationally, especially to some fairly obscure destination I would suggest checking a month or more in advance, and then again a couple of weeks out and then again maybe 24-48 hours before your flights.
As I said earlier, call the airline directly even if you booked through a travel agency, but if there is a problem with your flights get in touch with the agent. A good agent will take over and deal with the airline to try to work out some kind of satisfactory solution, or try to get you a refund.
Finally, I’ll quote Christopher Elliott from his blog post that inspired me to write mine.
He suggests 14 days in advance as well as shortly before.
He wrote:
“At a time like this, when airline schedules are in a constant state of change, my advice is not just to call 24 hours before departure, but also two weeks before youre scheduled to leave. Why? Because if your flight is rescheduled and you dont like it, you can ask for a refund and still qualify for a reasonably-priced advance purchase fare. Try doing that a day before you leave, and youre talking big bucks.”
Good luck with your flights in January.
I hope you continue to lead a charmed life.