Booked in J AND Y on the same flight
 

Hi all,

Long time since I last posted, I have found greener pastures over to UA and *A... But I do still lurk over the AF forum and I come to you with a question that I hope one of you experts is going to have experience with or knowledge about.

I am booked on a paid ticket in Y on a flight, and I just booked an O award on that same flight.
I can't cancel the Y ticket because it's the return leg of a trip I do need to fly the outbound of (and I certainly don't want to be repriced into a one-way fare).
What should I do? Do nothing, show up at check-in and see what happens? Cancel the return once I have flown the outbound? Change the return to another date to avoid the conflict?

Any experience/input appreciated.

Thanks!

I cannot think of a more obvious way to say "I am bending the rules".

Good luck! It will depend on the check-in agent andwhomever reviews this flight (yield management, etc...)...

If I were you I would either:
- pay the penalty and change the Y flight. Then you are probably fine.
- refund the O ticket and fly Y. But I suppose you want to get rid of these miles.
- if the class of reservation of your Y ticket allows it and there still is availability, refund the O ticket and use the miles to upgrade the Y ticket.
- try anyway, check in online for the O flight and not mention the Y ticket to any AF employee, and see if that helps you go under the radar (but I would not rely on this, although you never know). If you do this, make sure your Flying Blue number is removed from the Y ticket after the onwards flight (maybe replace it online with a Skymiles number...). If you get caught, say you did not think about it, you thought you were just upgrading your existing Y ticket...

IMO, it is extremely unlikely that you would not be detected by the time the flight is transferred to airport management. Long before the flight they tend to be a bit flexible because they know that people tend to change their travel plans and might make duplicate bookings, but as time gets near departure their computer system checks. it will not allow double booking under the same name/FFP number.
Getting the O award on a different flight could probably help. But keeping it as currently is calling for trouble. Most likely they will cancel one reservation and call for repricing on your cheap Y ticket. You might be very lucky and go under the radar (very unlikely) or be offered a nice solution at check-in, but that is not a risk that I would take.

Words of wisdom. I fully agree. AF (so far) is reputed to be a bit more lenient with issues of changing travel plans but I think that this would be pushing it too far. Airport management would likely cancel one of the two bookings, whichever suits THEM best and you wouldn't have a basis to complain. I would therefore encourage you to do your own choosing instead when it is safe for you to do so (ie after you flew your outbound if it is the Y part you want to cancel).

I was once on a KLM flight out of Shanghai and just before takeoff - sitting in the business section of the plane, one guy was booked onto 2 business class seats on the same flight and there was a big fuss... would he have to pay twice? could he have both the blankets? etc etc.

so seems it can happen.

Why not pay a small change fee and move the Y ticket a few days later? (Any day that has availability in the same fare bucket).

That way they are different flights and I doubt anybody will find out.

You could move the Y return to much later. Maybe by then you'll be able to change it again to something you can use.

Thanks for all the input! Unfortunately you all only confirmed what I kind of already knew deep inside ;).

So I do need to do something about it, and it seems I have two options:

1/ Cancel the Y return after I have flow the outbound. But wouldn't the agent have to reprice the one leg I will have already flown as a one-way as he cancels the return? My guess is they would likely advise me to "just not fly it", at which point I would have to share the story of the O award. And from there, even if we assume the agent can cancel the Y return without repricing the outbound, I would still be concerned they could cancel both tickets (or the wrong one) in some kind of oversight (yes, I don't have a lot of trust in them...)

2/ Move the Y return to a later date. That's safe, but also expensive since my ticket was dirt cheap - actually it might be so cheap that no change is possible at all and we would back to option 1 where I have to share my story with the CS agent...

I'm thinking carefully try 1 and if it sounds like the person I'm talking to gets it, see what they say; if it sounds like they're overwhelmed, hang up and try again. If after a couple tries I still don't get a good level of confidence move on to option 2.

What do you guys think?

Maybe I'm missing a fundamental point here, but why can't you just cancel your award booking and, instead, use your miles to upgrade the Y ticket to biz?

-- Henry

Presumably because the "Y" (meaning "Economy", not necessarily Y-class Economy) ticket was not issued in an upgradeable fare class (currently Y/B/M/U, soon to be increased to also include K/H/L/Q). The OP says, just above your post, that the ticket "was dirt cheap". Hence, I really doubt it's in an upgradeable fare class!!!

The OP refers to "J" in the context of Business, though they clearly know/write that the actual class involved is "O". "Y" and "J" are commonly used as generic indicators of class of travel (perhaps in the case of KLM we should use "M" instead of "Y" as that is what is often printed on their boarding passes), rather than an actual indication of the specific fare bucket involved.

And if the O award was booked as a promoaward, it of course cannot now be cancelled (well, it can, but no refund will come of it).

KLM's fare structure can be viewed here.

The cheapest fare classes in intercontinental travel - T/N/R/V, plus some Q tickets, are technically not changeable at all. [All European travel is now changeable - the very cheapest fare class was up until recently also not changeable - again, we don't know what type of ticket you have, or when you bought it, though I guess you are talking intercontinental travel in one of the very cheapest fare bucketes]. To change these "non changeable" tickets, you would presumably have to "buy up" to the next available changeable fare, and also pay some penalty/change fee. So as you say, it could be quite expensive.

Is your award ticket refundable? As long as it's not a promoaward, you should be able to get something back (Flex Awards are fully refundable, classic awards have a fee of, if I remember correctly, €45 to refund).

The cheapest thing to do would be to cancel your award - if that can be done.

irsihguy28 is right, sorry for the confusion. I meant "Y" as in "Economy class", not as in "Full-fare economy".

Upgrading the Economy fare would not be an option regardless, since I'm getting the O leg for "free" (no additional miles). The full story is that I had a CDG-asia-CDG award booked and then realized I could get two "free" transatlantic legs by adding a usa-CDG and CDG-usa segment to the existing ticket. On the Outbound usa-asia you're allowed a stop-over in CDG for as long as you want...
So technically I can renounce the freebie but of course I find that hard to do :D.

I will call to figure out how much a change to the economy ticket would be and I will keep you guys posted (if only for future reference). I do appreciate the help and input!

It's my understanding that stopovers of >24 hours are not allowed on a single award ticket. Is your stopover instead the result of a "layover" in Paris between different tickets?

It's not clear to me which part of this itinerary is the paid part (was it US-CDG-US?), and why you felt the need to "duplicate" travel on this leg. As your itinerary involves 3 continents, I don't see how any mentioned sector can be "free"? Surely USA-Asia costs more than CDG-Asia, particularly when routing through CDG?

Perhaps I am missing something totally obvious here...but instead I am getting more mystified with every post!

Is this an FB redemption, or made with some other Skyteam program?

That makes (at least) thirty-one of us! :D (The Three Henrys and Twenty-eight Irishmen.)

-- HIMH3

... I also find it hard to believe that USA-Asia is the same miles-price as Europe-Asia. Unless, of course, the prices are based on the assumption that USA-Asia would normally be TPAC, and somehow the system allowed the change (adding USA-CDG r/t) because of a bug in the system.

But, really? Bugs in the AF/KL/FB system? Who ever heard of such a thing!

- H3