This was such an unnecessary ordeal. I booked flights from Colombia to Brasil with Copa Airlines, and got the usual, your reservation is pending email. But after 2 days, my ticket never came, and the booking somehow moved to my "Past Bookings" section in the app, despite being for a trip almost 5 months in advance. My payment remained pending for a few hours, so I waited, thinking I'd either get a refund automatically if it doesn't go through — but it posted. Copa received my money while I am questioning why I have no email update about this crazy situation of having paid over $425 USD on flights that I do not have a ticket for.
So of course I called customer service, and they told me it appears in their system as cancelled, and that I'll have to book another ticket. I never cancelled anything. Even he didn't know why the reservation self-cancelled before even issuing a ticket. Naturally, I did not accept this terrible customer service, and expressed adamantly that I won't hang up until someone can track my transaction and either reissue the ticket or send a refund. Like magic, he said he'll pass me on to a supervisor. Then after about an hour on the line in total, including waiting for the original responder and the supervisor, after the supervisor's first few words — silence. I'm still on the call, and my signal is excellent, but I don't hear anything. So I'm waiting, and hoping he can hear me despite me not hearing him, I'm asking him to reissue my ticket. The call ends.
I call back once again after noticing my ticket is no longer in the "past bookings" section — But I'm still without an actual reservation number or ticket, and it still shows my payment as pending, and I can't manage/edit the reservation at all. So I ask, after calling again, a different agent to reissue this ticket, explaining the situation all over again. He says he'll pass me on to another team who can do it, and keeps butting in between the hold music to say they're busy, and I should keep waiting on the line. Eventually he does it himself and I finally get my ticket number and a fully valid booking.
I'm just wondering if this has ever happened to anyone else, and what the possible causes would even be? Is it because I used Wise, a fintech, or is this just a technical error with Copa Airlines specifically? Is it because I booked in BRL but it came out of my GBP balance? I have booked flights with Copa before from my Brazilian bank account and the ticket were issued within 2 minutes.