Changing or Cancelling - a mish-mash of charges...

[anat0l]

Have some questions with respect to changing or cancelling fares. In each case, assume that "rules are rules" but if you would like to share your own anecdote, feel free.

I guess I'm asking about QF because that's the fares I'm looking at and what not, but I suppose any of these could be applicable to any carrier.

• For any fare type, if you voluntarily change your flight, you will always need to pay the fare difference if the new fare is higher in cost. True or false? (This is in addition to any fees/surcharges incurred as a result of obtaining the new fare).
  This one got me thinking because I was reading some fare rules for the flexible fares recently and in some of the 'detailed' rules for the fare type it doesn't say you need to pay the fare difference, but in the summary tables it says you do need to.
  • As a corollary from the last question, if you change your flight mid-itinerary (e.g. your inbound flight after you have flown the outbound), how is the cost of the 'new fare' calculated should you choose to change your fare? Do they just look up how much a one-way costs for the fare you want to change to? (Even if this means, e.g. for some sectors we know that a one-way costs not much less or even more than a return fare)
• When a ticket is said to be valid for, let's say 12 months, what does this mean? The way I read it, it basically means the PNR is active for 12 months from being instigated (i.e. first time of purchase). You can change the dates of travel, the origin, the destination, the number of sectors in the PNR etc., but after 12 months elapses the PNR expires.
• As a follow on from the last question, are there particular changes that can be made to an existing booking and some that require a full cancel and rebook? If so, what kinds of changes can't be made by simply changing an existing booking?
  Although I'm not sure what effect this has on cost, consider an example with classic award redemptions. Given an already booked award, changing it will cost 2500 points, but cancelling it will cost 5000 points. I know one time I successfully modified an existing QF Classic Award booking by changing the destination, routing (two sectors instead of one) and type (Classic Award to Partner Classic Award) and only paid 2500 points in change fees.

 

[dajop]

I'll leave answering your questions to the true experts, one anecdote I have is be wary of ability to do online changes to flights.

Cheap fares booked online that require changing can generally be done online for the change fee + any fare difference. However if it is booked through the multi-trip booking engine online, you need to call and therefore incur phone service fees in addition to change fee and fare difference.

Noticed this as we booked a flight MEL-SYD-SIN-MEL through the multi trip booking engine to get a little extra time in the SYD FCL that wasn't coming up as an option on a simple return. Couldn't be changed online, and explanation was that it was booked as a multi-sector trip (as opposed to when MEL-SYD-SIN-MEL is booked just as a return flight)!

 

[Dave Noble]

[*]For any fare type, if you voluntarily change your flight, you will always need to pay the fare difference if the new fare is higher in cost. True or false? (This is in addition to any fees/surcharges incurred as a result of obtaining the new fare).
This one got me thinking because I was reading some fare rules for the flexible fares recently and in some of the 'detailed' rules for the fare type it doesn't say you need to pay the fare difference, but in the summary tables it says you do need to.

False. Depends on the airline. Some fares do not allow any changes , so are use it or lose it. Others, if travel has commenced but fares have increased ( for same booking class), then the changes are based on fares in effect when the original ticket was purchased

When a ticket is said to be valid for, let's say 12 months, what does this mean? The way I read it, it basically means the PNR is active for 12 months from being instigated (i.e. first time of purchase). You can change the dates of travel, the origin, the destination, the number of sectors in the PNR etc., but after 12 months elapses the PNR expires.

After 12 months from date of 1st sector ( or date of issue in some cases ) the ticket is no longer valid and will have no value at all; the PNRs are just reservations for flights and are separate to the ticket. I have however seen a few tickets which actually had an 18 month validity

As a follow on from the last question, are there particular changes that can be made to an existing booking and
some that require a full cancel and rebook? If so, what kinds of changes can't be made by simply changing an existing booking?

Changing the 1st sector may need a cancel and rebook , though commonly have the airline just recalculate the fare and apply the value across rather than requiring a refund