Can you add FF number to the EZ Air booking?

[nho9504]

We have never used EZ Air before but will be using it for returning from Europe after a Transatlantic / Europe land trip.

 

Does the EZ Air booking process has box to input FF number?   Or it can only be added on marketing / operating airline's website once ticket is issued? 

 

I assume you would get a receipt containing eTicket number once the purchase is paid.  To me, the reservation number is not enough, one needs the eTicket number to make sure the reservation is actually ticketed.  i.e. the airline which markets the flight has received the payment.

[Steelers36]

Yes, try a mock booking.  You don't need to keep it.  I would also look up any res on the airline website to be sure it carried over.

[PacnGoNow]

17 minutes ago, nho9504 said:

We have never used EZ Air before but will be using it for returning from Europe after a Transatlantic / Europe land trip.

 

Does the EZ Air booking process has box to input FF number?   Or it can only be added on marketing / operating airline's website once ticket is issued? 

 

I assume you would get a receipt containing eTicket number once the purchase is paid.  To me, the reservation number is not enough, one needs the eTicket number to make sure the reservation is actually ticketed.  i.e. the airline which markets the flight has received the payment.

Yes, when you book it, you’ll have an option to add your FF number, your Known traveler number/Global Entry if you have one.  

Also, you can go on the airline’s website, select you’re seats and make sure your FF numbers are in, or add them if not. 

[PacnGoNow]

23 minutes ago, nho9504 said:

We have never used EZ Air before but will be using it for returning from Europe after a Transatlantic / Europe land trip.

 

Does the EZ Air booking process has box to input FF number?   Or it can only be added on marketing / operating airline's website once ticket is issued? 

 

I assume you would get a receipt containing eTicket number once the purchase is paid.  To me, the reservation number is not enough, one needs the eTicket number to make sure the reservation is actually ticketed.  i.e. the airline which markets the flight has received the payment.

Rest of your questions…

The tickets are issued 45 days out.  So, once the tickets are issued, I go onto the airline’s website and get the eticket info.

Just pull it up by the airline booking number after 45 days.  Check your seats. Some carriers let you do seating right away, others you wait until ticketed. You have to go to the operating carriers website if it is a codeshare flight for seating.

 

[Rick&Jeannie]

Keep in mind that if you are confident about the air and cruise you can request that the air be paid early.  It then becomes a "non-flexible"(?) ticket.  You can then do whatever you need to do directly on the airline website such as pick seats.

[nho9504]

Thanks everyone for the very helpful info for the first timer on EZ Air.  Truly appreciate it.

 

Sorry for the long post.  I am just thinking out loud so to give some background on my concerns.

 

I do not know mock booking would carry over to the airlines as most airlines require immediately ticketing with AA being the only one allows 24 hours hold. That is why one could only do maintenance stuff after 45 days - presumably the payment is made, hence ticket is issued. 

 

If the ticket is not issued until 45 days (assume after payment), I believe the ticket is booked into "Consolidator" bucket, not the regular fare class buckets of the airlines, especially in most cases EZ Air are cheaper, and in some particular routes / particular airlines, A LOT CHEAPER than book directly with the airlines.  I am not sure consolidator tickets would even earn miles.  However the ability to add the reservation to the FF accounts would make maintenance easier as it would show up under My Trips in most FF programs. 

 

Do you get a confirmation from EZ Air after your payment?  Would the confirmation also shows the eTicket number (the eTicket issued by the airline)?   

 

My main concern is the information of eTicket numbers.  That is the Proof of the airlines have gotten the payment and the reservation has been ticketed.  Airlines ticketing process is screwy.  Many times a small change would cause decoupling and then all of a sudden the reservation lost its ticket.  Having the initial eTicket numbers is of tremendous help in keeping track of things should the flights have changed after ticketed. 

 

And yes, I always go to operating airlines own sites to perform Check My Trip stuff to make sure what the operating airlines show the same information as on the tickets.  One time on Alitalia they showed double bookings which took 20 min at MIA counter to clear it up, despite Alitalia phone agents insisted they only saw one booking.  Another time Aerplan online lost a Turkish airline segment, but thankfully on Turkish airline own website, the segment was intact.  Aeroplan could not explain why it was so while Turkish airline assured me it was fine on their end so we flew the itinerary without hiccup.   Always, Always, make sure the operating airlines show the same as on your reservation!

 

In the frequent flyer's lingo, this is dubbed as "gardening your reservation" especially when your flights are months away and 1 or 2 quarters later  Airlines change schedules big times 2 times in a year - Summer and Winter schedules, as well as tweaking their schedules each quarter.   The latest example in our travel is that, we had a FRA-CLT-FLL itinerary booked in November for travel in April as a return flight from Sky's Transatlantic.   It had massive changes in January,  because back in November only Winter schedule was available to book, then in January AA  changed it to Spring schedule which caused many many schedule changes system-wide.  Since we no longer sail on Sky I just went ahead to cancel the tickets last Monday, the same day we canceled our Sky sailing,

 

i am not too concerned on when there are flight cancellation for whatever reason, such "consolidator" bookings are NON -Endorsable, i.e. you can only fly what is on your ticket, which cannot be endorsed to another airlines even when the airline owns your ticket does not have flights until days later.  That is the major drawback of "Consolidator" tickets.  I am willing to take this risk on this occasion because we do not need to meet a deadline to fly home from Europe. 

 

Also the flights I am looking at, are AA's own flights.  I try my best to avoid codes share flights, even though in some odd occasions the code share flights are cheaper than the operator airlines flight.  (that is the case in some itineraries I look at,  AA code share flights on IB metal are cheaper than IB issued tickets on EZ Air.  Normally it is the other way round.

 

My experiences with various airlines have been, AA in particular, even you can pull up the reservation with the PNR (record locator),  the button of Print Receipt has been eliminated long time ago.  The only way to get the eTicket number is from the "Ticketed" confirmation email sent by AA.  Or you can call the agent to get the eTicket number.  I have gone thru many such exercises because of partner flight schedule changes often require a reissue of New eTicket (so the partner would get paid).  Getting a New eTicket number is the only sure way to ensure the process is completed. 

 

Slightly off topic - UA is notoriously bad in dropping the reissuance step on their award tickets.  But UA has the function to View Receipt which you can find out if a refreshed, NEW eTicket has been issued to reflect the flight changes.  Last October a friend's UA issued ticket on LH was not reissued when LH had changed schedules. causing they would miss connection at Frankfurt, AND UA agents had modified the itinerary to go thru Munich versus Frankfurt, - the ticket was not reissued even though on UA website it looked fine, reflecting the changed itinerary.  I urged him to check the Receipt on UA website - sure enough the receipt was still the old receipt.  No reissue.  Upon calling UA, he was told the flight from Munich to US was no longer available... so the ticket could not be reissued now as per the modified reservation.  At the end, UA switched them to UA's own metal returning from Paris thru EWR instead of the original Paris - Munich - Denver, all on Luthansa.

 

Reservation does not get us on a flight.  Ticket is the only mean to let you fly, as it is the proof of the airlines have gotten paid for the flights.

 

Enough such stories over the years happened on us and friends, have made me very alert on Ticket Issuance as reservation does not mean anything when no ticket attached to it!   That is why I really want to know whether you get a confirmation from EZ Air that contains eTicket number.

 

Back to the Cruise booking and EZ Air.

 

On Jan 31st we canceled Sky Transatlantic March 12th sailing.  The 50% cruise fare and taxes/fees were back to AMEX with Feb 1st posting date though the AMEX alert on Merchant Credit came on Feb 2nd.  So the $ part of refund apparently is done automatically.   The FCC part that covers the 50% of cruise fare being cancellation fee will take a lot longer, I understand.

 

We would like to rebook Enchanted transatlantic sails on April 9th.  This time I figure I would book direct with Princess, versus going thru our TA.  It would be easier to deal with Princess on speeding up the FCC availability to use on upcoming booking.  A chat rep told me I could make the reservation then contact Princess which would extend the courtesy hold to "protect" the booking.  I do not have a PVP because all our cruises have been booked thru the same TA.  The transatlantic cruises have Very Little agency incentives, as in $30 pp - not enough to add an additional layer of TA when the booking could involve a lot more work (not fair to her when the commission may be no more than $200 - I accidentally saw that on the Sky Upgrade Notice from Princess which showed Agency commissions).

 

I also noticed the airfare on EZ Air on the previous flights we were eyeing at if we sailed on Sky, had gone up $150 pp, while the new EZ Air fares for return from Enshanted trip have not gone up, yet - still the very favorable prices.  This makes me anxious in getting the Enchanted booked then purchase the EZ Air.  

 

Also Princess not only took away the $100 per cabin OBC that was available thru the whole January,  but also jacked up many cabin prices by $150 to $200 pp, while called these Drop and Sail fares which are MORE expensive than in Dec and Jan, when not yet "Drop and Sail".  LOL.

 

Thank you for reading.  Any additional info on the EZ Air eTicket receipt is very much appreciated.

 

 

[franktown]

You get the airline confirmation # when you book ezair even when Princess has not paid yet.  You can then go to the airline site and login using the airline confirmation # that ezair provides.

Edited February 5, 2022 by franktown
spelling

[cjpj]

Have always received my FF miles using EZaire. Agree with not booking codeshare, but sometimes there is no option ie) a location Air Canada does not fly directly to in the US have to code share with United, unless United flies there directly from departure location.

[nho9504]

On 2/5/2022 at 11:47 AM, cjpj said:

Have always received my FF miles using EZaire. Agree with not booking codeshare, but sometimes there is no option ie) a location Air Canada does not fly directly to in the US have to code share with United, unless United flies there directly from departure location.

 

Yes.  When there flying to / from secondary cites other than gateway, there is no option to avoid code share flights.  Code share flights between Canada and US are easy to handle if and when there are hiccups.  Code share flights between a US airline and a European partner airline when things go wrong it is much harder to fix.