re: Avianca "Life Miles" - New FF program in *A
If i book a F ticket and the airline has changed planes and doesn't have first class service who's responsible for that . Is it the airlines job to Carry me to my destination in first class or do I contact lifemiles and have to re-book ? Even tho the rates are higher now then when I made the reservations.
You can still currently book nrt-sin in F on UA803 but they have changed planes and flight now to UA7 which doesn't have first class. It worked out in the end just curios as to what's the rule and who's responsible . Other then myself checking everyday
basic premise... airlines are under NO obligation to carry you to your destination in the class of travel you have booked. as in, you cannot
demand to flown in first class if no first class is available.
if they don't carry you in the class of travel booked, then ordinarily they are liable to pay you some form of compensation. if you have paid for first class, with actual cash, but only fly business, you are due a refund.
it is slightly different in the case of mileage tickets because often the highest class on any one leg will determine the total paid for the ticket. so no refund may be due unless you downgrade the entire ticket to business class. if you are flying on the airline who has issued your ticket (for example flying on United with a ticket purchased through their frequent flyer program) then they may offer you a partial refund based on the miles for that sector. but it is harder to achieve that if the operating and ticketing carrier are different.
other rules may also come in to play depending on where you are located. if you are on an EU carrier, or departing the EU for example, specific compensation applies to downgrades.
ordinarily if you are subject to a downgrade because of an equipment change your first course of action is to go back to the ticket issuer, be it lifemiles or USDM or qantas etc. they will try and reroute you on another available service with award seats in your chosen class.
if no award seats are available, you can contact the operating airline and ask them to create award inventory for you on another of their services. this then has to be validated by the ticket issuer.
if the downgrade happens while you are at the airport, then airport control often has more capability to reroute you. you may be able to negotiate a seat on a later service, or on another airline.
scheduled aircraft downgrades are published well in advance on airlineroute.net. checking this once a week will usually give you plenty of time to check your options.
