One problem with booking flights online without talking to an actual person is that mistakes can be made without anyone catching an error. This Monday my brother ended up with two American Airline tickets for exactly the same flight.
My father booked a ticket for my brother Monday morning. I helped my brother book a ticket Monday night. (This was after talking with my dad on Saturday and playing phone tag with my brother. None of us live near each other.) The whys of how this happened are not as important as the fact that my brother had two plane tickets–one on his credit card and one on my dad’s. Since I helped create the snafu, I felt obligated to help rectify the situation and called American Airlines myself. Of course, customer service cannot be accessed through the phone tree. I called the number that led to reservations and was eventually kicked to a real person after I didn’t respond to the questions of the voice-automated system.
The real person pleasantly told me that since both payments had gone through, my brother did indeed have two tickets, although he could rebook one of them for $100. I sputtered, “But they’re for exactly the same flight!” She saw my point, but told me how to get in touch with customer service since her supervisor told her there was nothing to be done through reservations.
Undaunted, my father called the reservation number by using my system to connect to a real person. His person cancelled the ticket my brother had bought. There wasn’t a problem at all. Supposedly, my brother now has only one ticket which is all he needs. When at first you don’t succeed, try, try again–even with an airline. You might get lucky.