MPH1980

Just working out my next work trip. Normally do flight+car in WTP - happened to experiment with CW. Normally WTP involves a £100 amendment fee ... this is what I saw on CW:



So the cost of the trip is about £1900 (a bargin IMHO) - but to change it will involve me paying a further £1900 BEFORE the difference in flight costs???

haasha

There is a sale going on so it would probably be cheap sale fare with no changes allowed.

FlyerTalker6245

Deleted

KeaneJohn

If you book more than 10/12 weeks out you just lose your £150/£300 deposit depending on what you paid not the full amount. Your other hope is for a schedule change.. a dead cert if you have an American sector in your booking.

Often1

Not likely to be an AA sector on a LHR-YYZ return.

But, bottom line is that this sounds like one of those wholly inflexible tickets. Can't be changed. Has no value if not flown as ticketed.

FrancisA

Not sure I see anything odd here.

Economy fares, be they LH or SH, normally offer some kind of change for a fee, even if refunds are not possible, however cheap the fare class.

However, with business class tickets issued in the UK, BA offer totally inflexible, but heavily discounted, I fares. Again similar rules for both LH and SH and similar Saturday night stay requirement. BA do not offer heavily discounted one-way business class tickets.

Only way round this is to get an ex-EU based I fare, which typically does permit changes for a fee (normally around 300 Euro), unlike the UK equivalent.

The fares discussed here are use-them or lose-them. If you have any inkling that you may need to make a change, they're not for you!

Flexible preferences

In fact a 100% amendment fee seems slightly less restrictive than 'no changes allowed'. In the worst case, it means that you can still avail of the same price if you need to change, whereas if no changes whatsoever then the same fare level may be invalid and a new ticket could be a lot more expensive.

If fact I'm surprised to see Andset1191's experience which seems to be completely incompatible with the fare rules.

Foltan

You would still pay the difference to the new fare though, this is purely the change fee.

It's simply a confusing way of writing "No changes can be made".

Your ticket costs £2k, the ticket you want to change to is £3k. You pay the 100% fee (£2k) and then the difference (£1k) thus you've bought a wholly new ticket.

Flexible preferences

Thanks, but I am seeing it differently. If the ticket were 'no changes allowed' then you would forfeit the £2k (in your example) and pay another £3k for the new ticket - total paid £5k (difference £3k).

In this example, with these cancellation conditions, I read it as you would pay the same fare again to change dates providing the same fare class is available, even if the same fare is not. So, to use your figures again if you had paid £2k, and the new fare on the dates you want to change to is £3k, you would pay £2k again - ie total paid £4k (instead of £5k).

I'm not sure about this, but that is my understanding (I did take BA ticketing examinations but it is a long long time ago now, so happy to be corrected!)

brunos

It could be a bug where 100% probably means GBP100.

But if correct (100%), I do not follow your interpretation. The text states a 100% change fee plus the difference in fare. That would be a total of 5K. That is exactly equivalent to a nonrefundable fare. And the same experience as Andset1191's experience.

Flexible preferences

Thank you - I think you're right.

MPH1980

So - OP here - I realised it was effectively pricing it as a 'no change' - but I guess I wondered why they had chosen to put such a nasty change fee on it rather than simply saying "no changes".

Is there some package holiday rule that prevents that?

Cymro

Perhaps not but if the flight element is subject to a 100% fee and the hotel and car elements are subject to a fixed-price change, a 100% fee could mean that the new booking would still be tied to the car or hotel element.

If it were completely non-changeable then there'd be no way to link the two.

Foltan

Indeed. They're saying that the flight is non-changeable unless you pay for a whole new ticket, but the car/hotel portion would still have a more reasonable change fee attached to it.

Dave Noble

I don't think that it is quite the same

If wishing to change the inbound portion after departure for example

If there is availability in the same booking class, a date change works out at GBP1900
If purchasing a new one way ticket , then if this costs more than GBP1900, making a change could be cheaper than a new fare

With a non changeable ticket then the only option would be the new fare

I assume you mean non changeable as well rather than just non refundable

Looking on EF, one way BA business fares from JFK and LAX to LHR ( for example ) are much more than GBP1900