My daughter was visiting her college roommate in Hong Kong. Her itinerary YYZ-HKG on AC was without issue. Return itin was HKG-PEK-YYZ. The HKG-PEK segment on Air China was cancelled without any notice to her/me. After being on phone with clueless agent and then downright nasty supr, the only thing he would do was to offer LH-HKG>FRA>MUC overnight, US-MUC>PHL>YYZ. Sure, send my 20 yr old daughter around the world because US wouldnt help in any other way.... Question, why didnt the "supervisor" book her in any available fare? Wouldnt that be a proper thing to do?? Turns out the flight was cancelled before she even left!!!
If the flight is canceled before the travel begins then you are at the mercy of the issuing carrier (US in this case) to agree on a mutually acceptable reroute. If you cannot agree on one the CoC says they can just refund the ticket. It is not completely clear how the new DoT rules would apply in that case. If the issues arise on the day of travel then the operating carrier (CA in this case) "owns" the ticket and they are supposed to handle the accommodation. In those cases the award ticket is supposed to be considered a revenue flight just like everyone who paid cash per the *A rules. The issue here sounds like CA canceled the flight some time out and US never notified you. That's not good at all.
The operating carrier (CA) was even less helpful than US. They refused to offer any alternative and even said that the segment wasnt even ticketed!!!
If the segment really was cancelled before the outbound trip began then they are technically correct.
