lewende

Back in spring I jumped on a "super-promotional" fare by DL and made a speculative booking in an attempt to change the date to next summer (I know, I know...). The routing was like this:

E: A city in Europe;
A: A city in the US;
L: A city in Latin America.

Day 1: E-A (next spring)
Day 10: A-L
Day 20: L-A
Day 30: A-E

Now my intended date of travel for next summer is finally opened up so that I made my calls to DL. Unfortunately, I was told by several agents that I will need to pay the fare difference to make such changes, which is true, until a nice agent agreed to change it for "free" but only when she found out there is no way to re-issue the ticket, she came back to collect the fare difference.

No thanks, but the story didn't end up there. Later on I logged in my DL account and to my surprise, the last agent did change part of my ticket per my request, and now the ticket goes like:

Day 10: A-L
Day 20: L-A
(Day 30: A-E) - disappeared from the itinerary but viewable in the receipt
Day 110: E-L - this is my intended date of travel; however, I am unable to select any seats right now

Needless to say, the whole ticket is a mess now and there are issues all over the place, but if anybody may provide feedback on my next step below, I would be very much appreciated!

(1) What will be my best course of action, given that I would still like to travel on my intended date, without paying astronomical fare difference?

(2) If I play dumb and just show up at A airport in Day 9, will the counter agent accommodate my request to change the entire ticket to summer without re-fare?

Thanks!

flyerCO

I highly doubt you're going to get anything other then what you booked. I'm not sure why the agent would think they could re-issue the ticket without collecting the fare difference, but the system proved her wrong. BTW Is this some type of award or cash and miles ticket? I'm just not sure why she would think she could get away not re-pricing it.

I would call now to get it fixed. I'm betting your actual tickets may be correct, but that somewhere something is out of sync.

Sorry, but you knew what you were asking wasn't allowed. You tried to game the system and now you have a screwed up reservation. Waiting to show up for travel on a day you never were ticketed for is a sure way to leave the airport without flying anywhere. The agent at the airport will be able to see what you actually were ticketed/reserved for.

JORBUST

Take a look at the actual receipt for the flight and see what the coupons say, if the ticket hasn't been re-issued, then the PNR is just screwed up. It's easier to call and have them fix it now so you don't have any delays at check-in.

Trying to change a ticket without paying the change fee seems kinda far-fetched, why would they sell refundable tickets if you can just ask nicely and change restrictive tickets?

If you find an absolutely amazing deal on airfare, but may not be able to take the trip, buy cancel anytime or cancel for work reasons travel insurance.

lewende

Thanks for the feedback. The fare itself is fully flexible and fully refundable. So the worst case is just asking for a full refund.

The only issue for me to change this ticket is to get around the re-fare since I don't have to trick the agent to waive the change fee (no change fee whatsoever for this fare).

flyerCO

The fare rules which is where the change fee or lack of change fee comes from is where the rule on re-pricing when changing flights come from. Anytime you change outbound flights a reprice will occur. Since this is a multi-city ticket I'm not sure on the rules for the remaining trips, but outbound change will always require a re-pricing.

TerryK

No, your ticket is perfectly fine, it is not a mess. The agent tried to reissue your ticket but system requested fare difference, you declined and no re-issuance was done. Your ticket is the same as before (no change).

Your reservation, however, is not in sync with your ticket. The agent forgot to change date back after you declined fare difference. You can call to change your reservation back to original one or cancel for refund. Changing reservation back to be in sync with ticket is perfectly doable and no fee.

If you play dumb and show up on your intended day of travel, the agent will not be able to check you in as your ticket and reservation are not in sync. He/she will send you back to ticketing desk to either reissue your ticket or to change your reservation to original date. The latter will not be possible by then as original date has passed. You will be stuck for a refund at the airport.

rylan

So first thing just call and have your PNR cleaned up. That shouldn't be an issue. That way you can check in for the flight etc.

Yes it is correct that if you make a chance to the ticket before you've flown, it will cause a reprice of the whole thing at the current fares, so you'd lose whatever your promotional pricing was. If it was back during the 'mistake' fare and you got a refundable ticket for super cheap out of that, you're most likely out of luck being able to do anything with it except for getting a refund.

One other option is to fly your first couple part such as the E-A/A-L/L-A and then immediately upon arriving in America, call to have them make the change to your final return legs. That way you've already used the other segments and won't have to pay for repricing those. The change will only reprice the unflown segments, using the historical fares in effect when you booked but based off current inventory... so you could end up paying more if the original bucket isn't still available.