Oh no! I missed my connection and had to pay extra

How does “codeshare confusion” play into this? The crux of this case is the tickets weren’t issued together in one PNR. (Passenger Name Record)

So when the OP stated that her “connecting” flight was still at the gate in Cairo, it was her ORIGINATING flight on the second ticket of the day. Even though her flight was at the gate, we don’t know where they were in the boarding process either.

Dear Sue,
Thanks to Air France and Chris you did not need to sue (pardon the pun) your travel agent.
If your travel agent did not warn you about the risks associated with separate tickets then they failed in their duty to protect their client’s best interest.
If your travel agent told you not to worry about separate tickets since the airlines were on the same alliance, then they misled you or blatantly lied to you.
However if you directed them to buy separate tickets because the total cost would be cheaper than a conjuncted ticket, then it is your fault.
The fact that you had to pay for your own hotel for the missed flight meant that you did not even have an interlined connection.
Who was your travel agent? They need to straighten up a few things.

Didn’t we just have another story about AF/KLM charging someone at the gate? In this case though, it sounds like it was justified.

Anyways, there was part of the story that confused me….. “Kenya Airways put me up in a hotel for the night…” Yet later on the OP states… “These changes have cost me a total of $538, when you factor in the hotel accommodations.” and the resolution… “(AF) it decided to refund your change fee and hotel bill”

So did Kenya Airways pay for the hotel or not? The OP makes it sound like they did yet the OP wanted to get paid for the hotel?

Thanks. I’m on cup #3, and I feel like I may need more this morning.

I should have known better :-)

If all her airlines were partners, why wouldn’t they have checked her in all the way to her final destination? That way, they would’ve known that she was late, no?

We can put a man on the moon ( 40+ years ago) but can’t link 2 legs of a trip together? Somethings not right here.

Chris Elliott’s Monday Article … “My flight was delayed due to a thunderstorm and I missed my cruise.” Poll question: “Do you think travel insurance companies should cover the world ending on Friday?” :-)

Say what? Her flight is LLW-NBO-CAI-???-SFO.

She was stranded in NBO. Got to CAI one day late. (Techinically she was already NOSHOW in CAI).

She was lucky AF/KL did not NOSHOW her in CAI. Otherwise, the ONEWAY ticket from CAI to SFO would be a lot of money.

even more than the poll question, they story seems to equate airline alliance with codesharing as well.

Honestly, that would actually work better than what he does now. If the poll question is going to basically run into the article like this layout has it doing, the more apples and oranges the question can be, the better. He gets into trouble in cases like this when the story and poll are kind of halfway related.

I’m still in the confusion of “The airline put me up at a hotel” but then goes on to say she had to pay for a hotel out of her own pocket. Clearly, Sue the OP, has communication issues.

She says that the Kenya airline rep told her they’d put her up in a hotel and take care of her flights for the next day. Yeah, and Santa’s bringing me a 10 carat diamond next week. . Any adult who’s ever dealt w/ bureaucracy would ask for:
1. A hotel voucher showing who’s paying for the room
2. A ticket for the next day’s flight. Why would you wait to get it the next day?
3. The full name of the agent who made all the nice promises but gave her no documentation of any such agreements. (sounds like a “tell her what she wants to hear” employee who’d be off the next day)

The fact that Sue can’t communicate clearly, and doesn’t question people who don’t give her their name or tickets or vouchers, makes me think there’s more than meets the eye here because she’s shown herself to not to be concerned with facts, and believes in the miracle of employees speaking only the accurate truth. Spreading the word of religion is the perfect job for her. However, she clearly can’t book her own travel, especially when making complicated connections in countries that typically have only one flight a day to/from your destination.

I think TonyA gave a great explaination of how these tickets work. If the travel agency booked the itinerary this way, without informaing Sue of the potential costs if something goes wrong, then it’s their responsibility to make good for the extra charges she incurred. A full service travel agency knows what can go wrong, even if Sue doesn’t, and it was their job to make sure that her itinerary was properly ticketed to protect her.

Sue should have asked the TA what happens if I miss one of my connections? But then we know, she doesn’t ask questions, so it’s not surprising that she didn’t. If this were my itinerary, I’d have about ten “what if?” questions. Again, a full service agency is supposed to be smarter than the customer and should have given her the proper ticketing. If she declined, because separate flights are cheaper, then if I were the TA, I’d make her sign a waiver that I’m not responsible if something goes wrong.

She also should have looked into travel insurance. Flying on this kind of itinerary is risky.

“Methinks thou protesteth too much (or some such)”… Really, I so enjoy your articles but especially I get a kick out of your readers (many are real “regulars”)…have you thought of being on “Reality TV” or, at least, the Jon Stewart show? (maybe “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia”)

I find that missionaries are not a questioning lot by nature, They accept what people tell them because they have faith in most people. They are not savvy world travelers. This trip was probably arranged for them or for a group and they dutifully followed instructions. I think being a missionary requires a certain amount of unquestioning trust.

I am not sure I would say that someone who was doing charitable work was gaming the system. More like trying to make their charitable dollars work better for them. I use to handle travel for a client that paid out of pocket to do similar work and we got very creative as it allowed him to do more.

I hate to say this but a lot of PRIESTS here have been abusing kids (and are in jail). No one is above the law and must follow rules (even those from airlines).
When someone games the system, they need to be responsible for the risks.
I hope I don’t have to stand up from my PAID CHOICE seat next time a missionary worker wants my seat. I’m not that charitable.

I often get third-parties doing the booking for missionaries.
It gets very confusing because the actual passenger (the missionary) is not talking to me.
But then at the last minute, the actual passenger calls and needs to be briefed about what is going on.
I don’t think the OP chose her routing. It could have been someone else at the mission wanting to save a lot of money.
I hope people reading this site do not get the wrong message.
THIS IS NOT THE ROUTING ONE SHOULD TAKE IF YOU WANT TO GO FROM SFO TO LLW !!!
:-)

Bodega, note the so-called Ticket Reconciliation request coming from Kenya Air.
I am confused. What is there to Re conciliate if the flight segments are not even in the same ticket. This is NOT an interlined flight.
It looks to me like someone in KQ was trying to pull some strings (maybe because she was a missionary).
This is wrong.

…flyertalk gamers seem to benefit the most. :-)

I haven’t a clue to this. I know when I missed a connecting flight and had to overnight, I didn’t leave the airport without a confirmed reservation and boarding pass in hand.

I’m sorry, but I respectfully disagree that the OP was “gaming the system”. She used a “full service travel agent”. You’re expecting that the OP has more knowledge of travel and arcane trip planning rules than she probably has. All she knows is that she’s out money that she didn’t think she would be out.

I really think the onus on this should be on the travel agent. He/she came up with this itinerary and sold this itinerary – and it didn’t work as planned. Chris Elliott is savvy, but as you and others have pointed out, doesn’t know all the ins and outs of travel planning that you and others do. Surely if he could spot some problems immediately, the travel agent should have done so as well.

Why did the travel agent book this trip this way? I can’t read the mind of someone sitting across from me, let alone someone I don’t even know located who-knows-where. I do think the travel agent should have stepped up to the plate for his/her client and I don’t see in the story where that happened, either at the time of the problem or upon the conclusion of the trip.

I’d save my rancor for the travel agent.

Can someone explain to me how the same flights on the same airlines need to be $640 more if you book them under a single record locator, rather than a la carte?

Since when has preaching religion been “humanitarian” ?

As an agent, too, as I am, you know that customers don’t often listen to you.

There may be at the time a better point to point fare than a through fare. We see this all the time.