WASHINGTON -- ARC said it is trying to fix a glitch that occurs
when travel agents void sales of electronic air tickets, but the
void messages never get to the airlines.
Sometimes the sale that the agent thought was voided still will
reside in the airline's system, ARC said.
The situation can get sticky if the client or someone else
travels on the electronic ticket that the agent thought was voided.
In that case, the agent would get a debit memo for an unreported
sale.
Electronic ticketing accounts for about 53% of agents'
transactions through ARC.
ARC said it's working "very hard" with airlines and CRSs to
rectify the "disconnect" problem and trying to discern whether it
occurs on particular airlines and CRSs.
The glitch came back to bite Tim Bachert, assistant manager of
Professional Travel Services of Gallup, N. M., in the form of a
debit memo for an unreported sale, plus a $23 administrative fee,
from TWA.
Bachert said he had a corporate client who decided not to travel
on an electronic ticket that cost $486. Bachert voided the sale, or
rather, he thought he did, but the void message never got to
TWA.
The client changed his mind at the last minute and decided to
fly on the same day. Bachert issued a new ticket, which by this
time cost around $1,200. When the client checked in, TWA said, "Oh,
you're already ticketed," and let the man travel on the original
transaction.
Eventually, when TWA did its audits, the carrier noticed that
Bachert never reported the $486 sale, so it sent the debit memo for
a sale that the agent thought was canceled.
"What I can't understand is, why didn't TWA want the $1,200
ticket instead of the $400 ticket?" Bachert said.
On the bright side for Bachert, his client paid by check, so the
headaches of credit card statements were avoided.
ARC supplied the following advice for agents:
If you report sales electronically, make sure you void
electronic tickets in your CRS, which is supposed to communicate
the void to the carrier, as opposed to your sales report data from
ARC.Voiding in your CRS gives you a better chance that the message
will get to the carrier.
You also can do the void in your sales report data, because the
void will automatically show up in that data because ARC will get
it from the CRS.
Try to get a voiding confirmation number from your CRS. It is
called an ESAC number, which stands for electronic settlement
authorization code, and is generated by the carrier's system.Even if you get an ESAC number, the carrier still might not know
about the void. But the number would be ammunition to show the
transaction was voided in case you get a debit memo for an
unreported sale.
Print out the CRS screens showing the steps you went through to
void an electronic ticket. This would provide a record of the void
that could be used in the event of a debit memo.Print out paper coupons and void the sale as you would void a
paper ticket. This defeats the purpose of paperless transactions,
but it's probably the safest way to make sure no one can travel on
the sale.