To re-cap after taking the first flight date changes and re-routes are possible?
I just recently finished my OWA, I had already taken 3 of 5 legs at the time of calling Qantas (2 were yet to be taken and I wanted to change Leg #4) - I was told that once the itinerary starts and you've flown some legs, that for the remaining unflown legs, only a
change of dates is possible and not a change of route, even if it's to the same destination.
I called Qantas when I was in London in an attempt to change my direct BA flight from LHR to SIN in PE (Leg #4) to be via either Doha (QR) or Dubai (EK) instead.
Reason for wanting to change to either one of them was that I could see business (QR) and first (EK) reward seats online on the same day as my BA flight.
I called at around 4pm London time (2am AEDST) so the chances of a good operator was very limited. I HUACA a few times and I (unluckily) managed to get the same consultant twice (she told me that there were no reward seats available even though I could see them on the Qantas multi-city tool then and there, so I ended the call and called back again 15mins later). I did get another consultant as well, but got the same BS response.
In the end I gave up (also considering I had limited minutes with my Australian SIM / roaming) and just took the PE flight to SIN. I
did however, at check-in, ask on the flight load and if there were any seats in business, hoping that there might be a free or cheapish upgrade.
The check-in person then said that there were seats in business available but wanted to charge £1.9k (AUD$4k+) for two people - I declined for obvious reasons.
When I got onboard though, the new Club World suites looked pretty nice (definitely better than the 2-4-2 ying-yang config) and cosy, but not $4k cosy.
Had it been £1k for both of us, I probably would have said yes, that was a bit of wishful thinking though.
Would have been nice had I got the QR flight as that would have cost no more extra in points other than a change fee (was already 318k capped) and taxes.
It's a risk too
if they are able to change it, because it needs to be re-ticketed quickly, and we all know of the disasters that have happened with Qantas and unticketed reward bookings.