oneworld - quick help required!!

For all those that may be unaware, OWEs ex Australia booked in economy increase in price fromm 15 July. This price increase is $200 for low season and $90 for high season tickets. I'm not sure about other fare classes.

Another change I've noticed is that now any changes which take place before departure are now free of charge. I presume this would include rerouting and the required reissuing of the ticket:

1. before departure / after ticket issue: unlimited changes permiited free of charge

2. after departure: date / time permitted at no charge. routing changes to other than date / time is permitted at a charge of usd 75 etc etc...

All in all what this means is that I and anyone else wanting to do Y OWEs have two days to issue a ticket before incurring the price increase. My question is, can I quickly get a ticket issued for a simple routing and then change it later? I presume I would not incur any fee for the changes even if it involves rerouting. However, if the ticket needs to be reissued, as it will be if I later reroute, will I be hit with the higher fare??


many many thanks

Sorry, cannot help. But I wonder if there will be a price increase ex-AKL too...

The fare is locked in and does not change even if you drastically change the routing (you can add/delete cities, for example). Your plan to buy the ticket now with a simple routing -- as little as 1 city per continent -- and add the real routing later is sound and will work without any problems. I think you can even change the number of continents but not 100% sure about that.

It especially stinks as the Aussie dollar has been strengthening quite a lot against the USD!!

Well I went to flight centre this morning and spoke to the manager there. She said there was a possibility that when rerouting I'd be hit with the price increase anyway, however I very much doubt this is so. Anyway, she said that she'd work through my "complex" itinary, and as long as I paid by the end of Friday, I'd get the lower price.

My advice is to book whatever itinary you can. Basically you can't lose since rerouting will either be free or usd75 at the most, which are both less than the price increase. If upon rerouting you did have to pay the increased fare you still will have lost nothing. If worst came to worst you could just cancel - there are no cancellation fees for the fare per se although your travel agent may charge you cancellation fees.