KLM Reward Booking: Your Reservation is Not Complete Yet

[AlastairB]

Hello,
I tried booking a KLM [CityHopper] reward flight with Virgin Atlantic points. The website handles the payment for the fee part, I can see that it’s authorised on my Amex, and then I get this a message saying:

Your Reservation is Not Complete Yet
Reference Number: #####
Sorry you’ll need to contact us to complete your booking #2104A

The points are not debited from the account – I tried again, and again the same – with a different reference number, which looks like a PNR. Putting that PNR into Manage Booking on VA or KLM returns either ‘not found (VA)’ or ‘All segments of this booking have been cancelled (KLM)’

Unfortunately, contacting them to complete my booking seems to be more easily said than done – no success after waiting on the phone for hours at a time. I emailed through their complaint form and they said they’d call back in 21 days, but unfortunately the flight is in less time than that.

Does anyone have any ideas of how to get them to fix this? Would calling another location (say the US) help? Should I just give up (annoying since I transferred Amex points for this)?

Cheers
Alastair

[memesweeper]

Wait times are extreme, but unlike BA they never hang up on you! Just call early and settle in for a very long wait.

[AlastairB]

Thanks – yeah, in the end I settled in at work with the call on hold and did get through in the end after about 90 mins. To their credit they were very helpful and did get it all booked quickly (after getting through).