Both of your scenarios make sense to me. In both scenarios a ticket was actually purchased, even if the accounting was a little messed up. Scott’s scenario is where a ticket was never purchased. That’s what i am having trouble with.

It might have… but it would have most likely ended up costing more than the ticket. Anyone who doesn’t believe me is welcome to check their network’s roaming rates to the Middle East.

I do use Expedia and Orbitz to book my flights, but I always go through car rental and hotel reservations directly because cancellation fees are typically waived when you go direct and give them more then 24-hours notice. I’ve had mixed success talking with Expedia personnel (it was much better when I was Expedia Plus and not talking with India) but have not had any problems with Orbitz.

Not exactly the same, but I have had a UAL ticket agent check us in on invalid tickets (the price had dropped, so I’d called the day before and they reissued the tix and sent a voucher, as normal). On the outbound, the agent seemed to do a lot of extra typing, but checked us in — as it turns out, on the old, refunded, tix. On the return, they claimed we hadn’t flown outbound and had cancelled the new return tix. Luckily we had our boarding passes from the outbound and they reissued, but it did indicate that the first agent was able to override something (I suspect both the old and new tickets were linked to the reservation code, and she was pulling up the wrong one)

I’ve had cases where some people purchased a flight ticket with us, the airline hasn’t billed them or taken the funds off their account immediately, yet they eventually took their flight and were “officially” charged later on. Given that many airlines have up to 8:59PM PST the day/night after the flight was booked to cancel without necessarily any fees, I’d imagine that makes it easier for everyone not to charge yet until everything’s so-called cleared or no last-minute cancellations occur.

That might be what Scott is referring to on maybe his last paragraph. Just speculating, of course.

Wait a minute. Are you suggesting that it is possible for an inexperienced agent to check someone in who doesn’t actually have a ticket. I have to admit to being very skeptical about that.

In any event, I have to strongly disagree with Chris’ suggestion that booking through an intermediary is generally a good practice. Common experiences suggest that the more pieces something has the easier it is to break. My experience is that booking directly with the travel provider provides the greatest chance of a successful trip. Booking through intermediaries permits the various parties to play the blame game to the traveler’s detriment

LESSON: Always carry documention of your E-TICKET NUMBER, *NOT* just a copy of your reservation.

I frequently see people who just show a printout from their computer that can be before a purchase. Showing such a printout is not proof that you have a ticket. Good agencies will always have the ticket number on the itinerary, but that is not always the case.

And as to the question, “If I don’t have a ticket, then how did I get here?” In SOME situations, you may have unfortunately encountered an “inexperienced” agent who could have been the first one who checked you in without you ever purchasing your ticket. I have seen that too, frequently. In a sense, you got “lucky” by getting on your plane without paying for a ticket. But if the ticket was never purchased, you are unlikely to get that fortunate on your return. (For people who can’t read closely, this is provided FYI, not commenting on the above situation.)

Chris didn’t seemingly recommend booking through a middleman, but neither did he say one shouldn’t. If anything, he appears to recommend, advise, or what-not what to do for this specific situation.

In this specific situation, though, I agree one ought to book directly with the vendor rather than through a middleman or travel agent/agency. But there are certain (or maybe few?) times they do come through as seen here, though that can definitely be avoided.

YMMV. Your Mileage May Vary.

I don’t think this traveler could have done anything different. Let’s assume he arrived at the airport with 2 hours to spare. If he sits on the phone to try to play tag with Orbitz, he might not have time to get through security and catch his original flight. Depending on his need, this may or may not have been an option. Maybe he had to be back in the morning for work or something. Unfortunately with such a mess at hand, it’s obvious a call most likely wouldn’t have solved this problem. The blame game would have taking a while to sort while he sits there in Morocco at an airport and waits. With all these circumstances at hand, he should have just bought the ticket, then disputed the charge on his credit card if all else failed. He had proof of his original purchase, and his credit card would have sided with him without a doubt should others left him stranded.

Justin