thetoolman

I am flying next week on a flying blue business class award ticket fco-bos with a stopover at cdg. The layover is 8 hours and there is an earlier flight with seats in business (on an A340 instead our ticketed 747). Will AF let me do the equivalent of a Delta same-day-confirmed change to the earlier flight? Or let me go standby and get on it? I am not sure how those policies apply to award tickets in business. We are sky team elite plus (delta platinum).

Goldorak

The answer is no. And even on paid tickets, AF allows you to change for an earlier or later flight only if you are on a fully flexible fare.

carnarvon

I do not understand.

Unless they are webawards, FB award tickets can be changed for a fee, can't they?

And paid tickets do not need to be fully flexible to be changeable (for a fee again), aren't they?

In both cases, of course provided there is room left in the class of booking.

KLflyerRalph

Classic awards can be changed for E45.
Flex award can be changed for free.
But of course, there has to be space available.

Goldorak

OK. In fact I replied to the "standby" case of the OP and changing without paying a fee is not feasible unless you are on a flex award, as recalled by KLflyerRalph (I forgot this case - sorry). So my answer was partially right and partially wrong and incomplete. And even when paying the 45 Euros fee, you need to have the fare bucket still available, which is far from being obvious a few hrs before departure. The same applies to restricted paid tickets. Some of them can be changed with a fee, providing the fare bucket is available. Otherwise, you'll need to pay the difference with the new fare bucket, which can be costly.

^

orbitmic

Well, I for one think that you answered the two specific questions asked by the OP perfectly correctly. ^ As you said, stand by and 'free' same day connection are clear no-no's in principle, be it with the award or upgrade ticket and I think that it is what the OP apparently wanted to know.

As mentioned by others - very rightly too of course, if it is an FB ticket booked as a classic award it can be changed for €45 if there is availability in O class (and for flex award in the relevant booking class, I think I?). However, as the OP says there are seats 'in business' rather than O, my guess is that he/she was hoping to be able to use seats that were not earmarked for awards and that would unfortunately be impossible.

Xandrios

..Unless these seats have now opened up. Just before departure they often do if there is last-minute availability.

The whole thing in regards to changes is easy though. AF does not allow standby. You can change your flight if your ticket allows changes, and this might require a fee depending on your ticket conditions. And there must be availability of course.

So in that respect it does not really matter if the OP changes his flight now or at the gate just before departure. The fees and rules will be the same.

cfischer

just to correct the OP, Delta does not offer SDC either for intl. itineraries. You can change the award ticket for free if it's more then 72 hours before the departure of your original flight. As long as O-class is available you can call Delta and have them change your AF flight to BOS; O-class is often coming up 3-5 days before departure. 2 weeks ago I changed a BOS-ATL-CDG to BOS-CDG 3 days before departure w/o any issues.

MSPeconomist

OP is DL GM, so each change to an award ticket means a $150 fee.

cfischer

OP reads: Delta Platinum, which means no change fees for award tickets.

JOUY31

While the OP's profile lists his status as Gold, his opening post refers to his status as Platinum.

Let's skip the personal comments. Thanks.

Jouy31
Air France/KLM co-moderator