How I Booked 1 Flight With Capital One Travel & Ended Up With 3!

Background

So I used my Capital One Venture X Card on the Capital One Travel portal to book myself one ticket on an American Airlines flight from Montreal to New York. I did this so I could utilize the $300 Travel Credit that comes with the card.

All was looking good until 24 hours before check-in when I received three emails with the subject line “Your complimentary upgrade is confirmed” and each email had a different confirmation code and 3 different seats. At first, I was super happy that I cleared an upgrade with being just AAdvantage Gold. But then I was worried that I was getting charged for three separate tickets. I quickly checked to make sure my credit card was only charged once, which thankfully it was. Phew!

What is going on?

I quickly called American Airlines to see if all 3 confirmation codes were actually real tickets. Sometimes, confirmation codes can just be associated with a held itinerary. The representative said that all three tickets were valid, and to call Capital One to figure out what was going on, since they have “limited access” to bookings done via a 3rd party. Alright time to call Capital One.

So, I spoke with Capital One, and they could only pull up my original reservation and they only saw 1 confirmation number. Weird! I gave them the other 2 confirmation numbers, and they couldn’t find them. They suggested I speak to American Airlines.

Time to call AA again…I explained my situation, and then I asked if they could tell me where the 2 other confirmation numbers originated from. Like, if Capital One can’t see it, who issued the ticket? The agent was reluctant at first, but then she told me that it came from Hopper.

It all makes sense now….well kind of?

So, Capital One Travel partners with Hopper to power its “price drop protection”.

The Capital One Travel website describes that

If you’re looking at flights and the price prediction tool recommends that you book now, you’ll get free price drop protection. That means Capital One Travel keeps monitoring the price for 10 days after you book the flight. If the price drops during that monitoring period, Capital One Travel will issue you the difference in price, up to $50, in the form of a travel credit.

Essentially in a perfect world, Hopper would track the flight and book it at a lower price. Something must have gone wrong with my reservation, as the price never dropped and it seemed that the 2 extra tickets were booked at the same price as my original ticket.

But it seems to make sense why Hopper could be the culprit for the 2 extra tickets, as they have a partnership with Capital One Travel.

Well, what to do now?

Alright, so Hopper booked me these 2 tickets I didn’t need, and they didn’t charge me extra. Do I need to cancel them still? The American Airlines agent told me that I should, because according to her, duplicate bookings often get canceled by the system, and she told me that if it was directly booked with AA, she’d think I would have gotten my tickets canceled already.

The agent informed me to just cancel them on my end since it’s a travel agency booking and she’s not supposed to touch them.

So I canceled them, and I had no issues boarding my flight the next day. It was so empty that the two duplicate seat bookings remained empty anyway.

I wonder if anything would have happened if I didn’t proactively cancel…? I rather not deal with the stress at the airport with no ticket. So, I think canceling the duplicates was the way to go, but the whole situation was just odd. You would think Hopper wouldn’t want to have paid for two random duplicate tickets.

The Verdict

Overall, I think I was in a very odd situation with Capital One Travel and Hopper booking me 2 extra tickets. On the plus side, it doesn’t look like I was charged for the duplicates. And, I ended up just canceling the duplicate bookings at check-in to avoid any problems with American Airlines, as per their instructions. The whole situation did scare me a bit, and it wasted about an hour of my time speaking with American and Capital One Travel, but I’m glad everything ended up okay.

Have you used Capital One Travel to book flights before? Run into any odd situations? Comment below!

Cheers,

Ty

Have any questions? I’ve also started working with a travel agency, Fora Travel, and can assist in booking hotel stays or planning trips. Comment below or email me at takeofftotravel@gmail.com. You can also view all my other posts here! Thanks for stopping by!