Two Booking on same flight?

I returned from JFK last night and was curious about a anomoly that occured at check-in - maybe someone can throw some light on it.

I priced up a PE flight about 1o days ago - 900 return in PE. However due to confusion at the office it was not booked, expired and when repriced it came in at 1800 - forcing me down into Y (which was by now 800 rather than the original 360).

When I turned up to check-in the agent had two bookings for me on the screen and had to phone to confirm which one was valid. I was somewhat surprised that a booking that was never paid for or confirmed should appear in this way - indeed I would have thought it would have been totally erased when it expired. Anyone in reservations know why this occurs?

Naturally I asked if they could reinstate the original at the original price but to no avail and therefore I enjoyed a wonderful 8 hours in at the back of a very crowded Y section.

FM

I know some corporate fares (especially PE) can be hold without a time limit, as we sometimes do with VS. Typically these are not very expensive fares, but only through corporate partners or few specialist travel agents.

But I don't know whether these holding bookings actually generate a 6-digit/character booking reference code at VS end, becasue we normally only hold a 7-digit booking code. I guess it shouldn't, but your case does sound confusing.

My travel agent holds the refundable and more expensive tickets right up to the date they can.

Typically for me, the cheaper ones are the tickets they hold upto the time they have to commit, which typically means they either book them or release them before the booking window, i.e 21 days etc.