CharlotteYork

I have an international flight booked on American Airlines metal using my Alaska miles. I want to change my flight to one that is leaving an hour or so earlier on the same day as now scheduled. Does Alaska charge a fee to do this? I looked on the Alaska website and can't find reference to this. Again, no change to day, destination or airline, only to an earlier flight.

Also, we have a second ticket booked for the same itinerary using American Airlines miles. Anyone by chance know if American will charge a fee for the change to an earlier flight on this international ticket?

nako

While I cannot specifically answer the question regarding AS policy, AA's policy regarding award changes is that their change fee is not charged if the change is only to the dates or times.

Mike

COpltASgldPHX

AS charges $50 for changes to award tickets - waived for MVPG

dgwright99

Which is great for us golds - you can book the best thing available well in advance (or even speculatively), and then keep switching to something better each time it comes along.

I use this to good effect to score BA F seats. For some reason, there is almost always BA F award availability from PHX if you can be flexible by a day or 2. As other flights come available for award 7 or 14 days out, I switch to a more convenient airport, and/or date. I'm 3/3 so far this year on getting from OK flights to exactly the flights I wanted. The only downsiude is that once you become accustomed to BA F, even CX/BA/VS/SQ J-class feels like slumming it a little

todd-r

I believe you can do same day stand-by on AA for the earlier flight for $0.

COpltASgldPHX

You certainly can on AA issued revenue and award tickets. My experience with AA, however, is that once another carrier becomes involved, wether it be an award ticket issued by a partner on AA's metal or even an AA issued ticket for a codeshare flight on another carrier's metal, the ticket counter agents tend to be less flexible.

The other thing you need to look at in this case is the connection time between flights. If the flight leaving an hour earlier creates a connection of more than four hours then they will probably not allow it.

At $50 the AS change fee is still lower than all of the other legacy carriers and even most LCCs. Delta just changed their change fee $75. Most are $100. If leaving an hour earlier is really important to you then I would pay the fee so you won't have to worry about what happens when you get to AA.

oklAAhoma

Except that, as nako already mentioned, AA does not charge a fee to change award tickets, if it's only the date or time of travel being changed.

COpltASgldPHX

Yes, however, if you read the OP one ticket used AS miles for award travel on AA. Therefore any changes must be made through AS and AS rules will apply. Like I said before, AA agents are very good at handling AA issued tickets, award or otherwise, for travel on AA metal. Once anything else is added into the mix (codeshare, ticket not issued on 001 stock, award using a partner miles) they don't want to do anything except tell you to call the issuing carrier or be inflexible when it comes to standby. I have experienced this myself and could fill a whole FT page with examples.

oklAAhoma

To clarify, I was simply responding to your remark ("At $50 the AS change fee is still lower than all of the other legacy carriers and even most LCCs) as it is not, imo, entirely correct. At least one legacy carrier (AA) charges $0 for certain changes to award tickets. AFAIK $0 is less than $50.

Fortunately for me, that has never been my experience while traveling AA. (JL's the airline that has given me the most trouble with partner travel.)

econjon

Sorry to drudge up an old thread, but is this issue resolved for same day changes? If the ticket has been handed over to AA I would think they would handle the changes as the operating carrier?