 E-tickets - a cautionary tale
Last weekend I returned from a throughly enjoyable
3 week US Vacation but had what turned to be a slight
problem but could have been a lot worse.
My intinerary took me from LHR-JFK , JFK-SEA on
American Airlines, SEA-SFO on United and then
back to LHR
As is common the transatlantic fllight was a conventional
paper ticket but the internal flights were on e-tickets
The outbound leg JFK-SEA was fine but on the SEA-SFO leg
I was nonplussed to be told on checkin that although
United had my seat reservations their records indicated
I should have a paper ticket !
As it happened I had all my correspondence with me
and their ticket agent was able to contact my
travel agent and sort it out in time for me to board the
flight but we made it with scant minutes to spare (got
to the gate less than 5 minutes before departure) even
though I had arrived at the airport 2.5 hours before
flight time.
Kudos to United by the way for their tireless efforts
to fix the problem and the way they got us (and our
luggage) on the flight despite final clearance happening
within 20 minutes of the scheduled departure time.
The moral of the story would seem to be try to confirm
the e-ticket really has been issued before travelling,
allow plenty of time for check in and pick a travel agent that
is contactable by phone for more than 9-5 UK time.
Keith
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