Is Air Canada Overbooking?

[YOWGirl]

Despite what appeared to be lots of room on flights from YYZ to LHR on Jan 3 in "Latitude" class aka full economy, my travel secretary unable to get me a confirmed seat. So I'm stuck doing American Airlines (where I'm a nobody grr...) via ORD. I asked her to please re-check, since the air canada site had all kinds of options in the same price range, but she said she thought something squirrely was going on and didn't think she could guarantee a ride.

[PAXboy]

The short and obvious answer is, YES! Every airline overbooks and this is adjusted by computer programmes based on the history of the route. That is, rotations, pax carried, no-shows, etc. Seats which now appear closed may open again, if the computer sees the pattern of booking change.

[Globaliser]

YOWGirl: Despite what appeared to be lots of room on flights from YYZ to LHR on Jan 3 in "Latitude" class aka full economy, my travel secretary unable to get me a confirmed seat. What do you mean by "lots of room"?

If it's simply that there are seats that are unallocated, but there are no further seats for sale, it's probably simply that there are many people holding reservations who do not have a pre-allocated seat at that time.

If it's the case that the AC website is offering seats for sale at certain price levels, but your travel agent is unable to see any availabiliyt, then it's possible that there are special fares only bookable through the AC website. Alternatively, your travel agent's computer may be suffering a glitch which prevents it from accessing AC inventory. One way to test this is to try a dummy booking on another website like Travelocity or Expedia. If they can do it, then your travel agent should be able to do it as well and their inability to make a reservation may be something funny that's particular to them.

[YOWGirl]

By lots of room, I meant that there were multiple flights on that day with advertised availability in full fare economy & biz class. I just found this particular situation to be odd, since I normally check an airline's site for schedules before I make my requests, and have never run into a situation like this before.

[radeng]

From experience, I'd trust travel agents about as far as personnel departments - i.e. not at all! Numerous times have I had prices from the company travel agent 30 to 80% above what I was quoted for the same seat and conditions (flexibility etc) on the airline web site.

Some of us are convinced the only reason that we are still instructed to use the company travel agent is that someone in head office is getting a kick back. It seems the only logical answer.

[PAXboy]

Not to mention the fee that the agency get! They will often direct you to the fare that gives them the greatest revenue/points whatever. In the past, they could do with this impunity but the WWW has changed all that.