Arrived at airport, informed we had no ticket to Colombia!

[sengsational]

Having the capital to execute on the original plan and work it out later is great.

Thanks for sharing the story.

Not to armchair QB the thing, but I have Chase points and might do air travel, so....

For Chase bookings, does the reservation show if you log on to AA.com? Would the glitch have shown up?

 

[Sunset]

OP - that experience would have driven me over the edge.. wow.

Reminded me how I used a 3rd party to reserve our honeymoon hotel stay. When we got there after a day of travel, the hotel said there was no reservation !
The hotel did come through for us, and saved the day, and it destroyed my faith in 3rd party bookings.

I now generally book directly, but sometimes to get swayed to use a CC reward site affiliated with hotels to book if the risk is small like in USA on a road trip, where we can drive to the next town for a hotel.

 

[2017ish]

UPDATE: reimbursement funds were credited to my account as of this morning. Took another 90 minutes over 2 phone calls, but ended up monetarily whole--and 15,000 Chase points for the hassle. (Redeemable, through the portal, as $225.)

Interestingly, the last rep warned me to expect a1099-misc for the reimbursement. Will require an offsetting entry, but shouldn't affect tax owed for 2022.

 

[GaryInCO]

In 2002 United had a fabulous sale on tickets to London. My then-DW and I decided to take our boys, age 5 and 7, on a trip to Merrie Olde. We spent the next several months getting them all jazzed about it, telling them stories about castles and kings, etc.

The big day arrives. We're at the counter in the Denver airport. "OK here are our tickets, here's my passport, here's my wife's passport, here are the kids' birth certificates."

"No."

"No!? Whaddaya mean no!?"

Kids had always flown with just a birth certificate. But this was about a year after 9/11. We didn't know it, but the rules had changed, and there was no way around it. I had to go back to my little boys and tell them we weren't going to England after all. Lemme tell you THAT makes you feel like a real heel.

And this was on Friday of Thanksgiving weekend. Just TRY to expedite something through the gummint that weekend!!!! But we managed it. It wasn't cheap, but our trip was 3 days shorter so that paid for the expedited passports. And we had a fantastic, if slightly shortened, vacation.

 

[PoF]

We flew here to Medellin the week after you. Used the COPA app to check in since we had no checked bags.

When the line started forming at the gate, we got in line. At the front of the line, I had our boarding passes pulled up on the app and passports in hand.

They said we needed paper boarding passes and they asked us to wait until everyone with paper boarding passes had boarded. They asked for our COVID vaccine cards, which we had handy -- no problem.

Then, in a thick accent, the gate agent asked for our "checkmate." I had no idea what that meant.

I Googled "Colombia checkmate" and found a link for Check MIG, the online form that apparently had to be filled out prior to boarding -- similar to Europe's Passenger Locator Forms, but this was the first I'd heard of it!

The one gate agent says "there's no time; you will not be able to take this flight." My wife and I ignored her and got to work typing away on our phones. Another gate agent was more helpful in helping us get the form filled out. We had to know the "department," aka state that Medellin was in, and our nationality, among a huge list of nationalities in English, was in the alphabetical list under "Estados Unidos."

Thankfully, we were able to quickly fill out all of the info required and get .pdf files downloaded in less than 10 minutes time and we boarded the plane. There were people getting on after us, too. I couldn't believe the one woman who straight up denied that it was possible.

 

[athena53]

In 2002 United had a fabulous sale on tickets to London. My then-DW and I decided to take our boys, age 5 and 7, on a trip to Merrie Olde. We spent the next several months getting them all jazzed about it, telling them stories about castles and kings, etc.

The big day arrives. We're at the counter in the Denver airport. "OK here are our tickets, here's my passport, here's my wife's passport, here are the kids' birth certificates."

"No."

"No!? Whaddaya mean no!?"

Kids had always flown with just a birth certificate. But this was about a year after 9/11. We didn't know it, but the rules had changed, and there was no way around it.

Wow- I thought kids ALWAYS needed to have passports to travel outside the US, Canada and Mexico. Glad you rescued your vacation.

I worked for one very large international company that had a clueless on-line travel reservation "tool" that always asked you if you needed a visa for where you were going. It was a REQUIRED field even if I was flying from Kansas City to Chicago. I would amuse myself by replying "yes" and then, in response to the follow-up question, "Freedonia" or "Whooziwhatsistan".

One executive booked a flight to Rio for an important conference. He had no clue he needed a visa- till they wouldn't let him on the plane at the airport.

 

[meleana]

I always hated flying. I refuse to fly on connected flights - non stop only- and I only book directly with the airlines. But I have not flown the last few years due to the COVID restrictions, masks, etc.. And now with gas prices I’ll continue to vacation in our state, enjoying our retirement here.

 

[CRLLS]

When things go wrong, it helps to be a member of the airline's Freq Flyer club. I also book on the airline's website. I had a problem once where we booked via American but the final leg was an independent puddle jumper. The return flights had been weathered-in for a couple of days. There was not any alternative, we were on an island. We went to the airport at the time of our flight and somehow the independent had lost one of our reservation seats. Only one was available. The FF helped put us up to the front of the line, over the many people standing around and complaining. Even with very low miles in out bank, they prioritized us over those without any FF affiliation.

 

[RobbieB]

I use third party sites to see "the best path"

Then I book direct.

 

[Jerry1]

I use third party sites to see "the best path"

Then I book direct.

That’s what I do. It’s primarily for hotel reservations, but I like booking directly. The little bit of flying I do is just Delta to go see my dad and I stopped flying to see him now that I’m retired. When I did though, I booked directly and am a Delta miles member.

 

[Gearhead Jim]

I use third party sites to see "the best path"

Then I book direct.

Exactly.
Our newspaper has a weekly piece about travel problems that they try to help solve.
90% of the problems involve booking through some third party like a discount site.
We've been traveling together for 50 years, always book direct, never had any oddball problems like OP and others mention.

 

[audreyh1]

I use third party sites to see "the best path"

Then I book direct.

Yep, namely Google Flights these days. And they send you to the airline to book direct anyway. Very convenient!

Long ago (2000 or so) I didn’t get to pick a seat as I normally could via a third party app. So I called the airline. The agent assigned me seats but also mentioned that if you booked directly you could change seat assignments for free. That took care of that.