golfingboy

CO and AA waives direct ticketing change fees for their top elites for purchased tickets.

DL, I don't think they do the same as AS, CO, and AA....

BOB W

I think everyone is missing the point. To quote from our travel agency:

"NOTICE:

New rules for changing your Alaska Airlines ticket go into effect tomorrow, March 24th.

Basically stated, when making a change to a ticket, ANY segments that are being changed will need to be re-priced at the lowest qualifying fare available at the time of the change.

Here is an example:
You purchase a 14-day advance Round Trip ticket from Anchorage to Chicago in "T" class. Currently that base fare is $218.10 each way plus tax.

The day before your return, you need to delay your return by one day.
Under the old system, if "T" class was open you would pay a change fee of $75.00 and the change would be made.

Under the new system, you cannot use the "T" class because you fail to qualify for the 14 day advance requirement. You would qualify for a "Y" fare of $697.10.

End redult is $554.00 plus tax to change this ticket instead of $75.00.

We have been studying this rule change for a week now, and we have developed some strategies for issuing Alaska Airlines tickets. Applying this new rule, there will be times when it can be advantageous to issue two one ways over one round trip, or advantageous to sell another carrier (underline mine) even though you fly on an Alaska Airlines airplane.

We just want to remind you we have your best interest as priority one, we keep current on all these changes, and when booking a ticket with us we will review these detail so you can make an informed decision.

Thank you for your continued business."

I may have missed it, but I have not seen much coming from AS about this. When we are talking about hundreds of dollars of additional cost like the example above, the change fees become almost moot.

eponymous_coward

I'm not missing the point. I just don't quite see it as the catastrophe implied.

... or you could do OLCI and delay your flight to the next day for $25 using same-day change. (Presumably, there would be seats available, since the example specifically says there are.)

Where this would fail is if you need to push your return flight back, say, a week. Is this a common feature for most customers, compared to being able to use My Wallet WN-style, and being able to use ALL your flight credits (as opposed to have AS eat some value when you exchange the value of your ticket for another ticket), or being able to undo AS50s (which I've done)? In this case, I guess it's a tradeoff.

Also: are there other airlines that handle their flights in this way- allowing changes outside of the advance purchase window as long as the fare class is open?

missydarlin

can you clarify what you mean here?

BOB W

I wonder if you could do this over a sequence of days? As a Gold there would be no change fee and the daily charge might be lower than the outright change....

eponymous_coward

Back in the day before My Wallet, I wasn't always able to get all the value back from my tickets when exchanging them...

alphaeagle

Last time I did OLCI and did standby (had meant to do SDC) it no longer gave me any more options to do SDC or standby online or at the kiosk(s). Calling them didn't help either. The flights were fairly full though, so that may be why. Doing SDC may have better results.

baliktad

No, once you opt for a confirmed SDC seat, OLCI will no longer allow further changes. You will need a TA/GA to make any additional adjustments, and as airport employees, they will only ever adjust your flight to another one on the same calendar day (no rolling 24-hour window flexibility).

So best case, you have an 8AM departure and need to stay several days longer. At 7 AM day of departure, you OLCI and confirm a seat for a 6:30 AM departure the next day. Stay your extra day, have your meeting, then the next day, show up early and beg an AS agent to have mercy on your soul and switch your early departure to the last flight of the day. Total extra time gained: around 36 hours.

As a Gold, you would be much better off just buying several extra one-ways for your return leg well ahead of time. Buy a return ticket for every possible day you might return, and use the one that suits you. Dump the value for all the ones you don't use into your My Wallet and use later at your convenience, for yourself or friends if necessary. Hey, if an airline wants to play the "we purposely overbook flights" game, you should have no qualms playing right back.

dc333

Many people doing that would directly lead lead to an increase in future overbooking levels. Kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Sorry for going off-topic.

Major G

Consider yourself fortunate to deal with AS. UA charges $150 change fee even for 1Ks like myself. Makes it of very limited value to try and reprice a ticket if the fare drops, unlike AS where I will call even to save $30.

And My Wallet is wonderful.^


Glenn

sltlyamusd

I, for one, think this is ridiculous and a huge money grab by AS. I am already using WN more because it saves me up to $40 in bag charges each way not to mention change fees. AS needs to wake up here. If the same inventory bucket is available, AS should make the change without a fare increase. Period. I don't mind paying the change fee, just don't gouge me with some ridiculous fare increase b/c it's no longer 14 days in advance. There's basically no chance you'll ever have that kind of advanced purchase when trying to change a return ticket.

BOB W

Bingo!!! My point exactly.

missydarlin

what airlines charge one way fares, yet don't require repricing to change?

eponymous_coward

Well, theoretically, AS did, except they weren't REALLY one-ways.

But yeah, try redoing a WN return on a round-trip when you're out of "Wanna Get Away" range for the return. You're going to be charged "Anytime". Oh, and that INCLUDES standby- you're immediately upfared.

But I'll be blunt: given a choice between coughing up residual value on tickets (which I've done on AS on some occasions) and coughing up extra cash to redo a return outside of the 14-day or whatever window (which I've never done), I pick getting ALL the value of my AS purchases. In fact, flying as an MVPG, AS has everything WN has, AND free standby/change to coterminal/same day change. It's actually better than WN.

Seattlenerd

What you're giving up is an artifact that remained when AS went to one-way pricing for every ticket, but kept the "same fare bucket on return" policy even though they treated all RT tickets as two one-way tickets in terms of pricing.

Try changing at the last minute to another day on Virgin America. You WILL pay the higher fare. And, if you bought the wrong kind of ticket, a change fee.

You may be irritated by this change in policy, but I'll take the ability to buy no-non-RT-penalty one-way tickets and get the benefit of that flexibility over return fare bucket protection any day.