Originally Posted by
EsherFlyer
Is there a forum for general airline ticketing questions that a mod can move this to....
...NO.
I have an imminent booking where I'm not going to be able to travel, and don't know when I will be able to. Non-refundable, but changeable for £100 or so.
Ticket is travel agent booked, and carrier is telling me I need to get the agent to cancel the flights but not the ticket and make both outbound and return 'open'.
Sounds plausible, but I sense that an unskilled agent may end up cancelling the whole thing
=
If you booked through a travel agent, you need to cancel through that same travel agent as their CRS / GDS holds the e-ticket info.
If ticket is nonrefundable, then you're not going to get any money back - including the YQ. You might just get the taxes back. But if you want to 'save' the ticket till later, you can. Just cancel the flights. By cancelling the flights, it doesn't cancel the e-ticket. So next time you want to use it, just book it again (with the TA) and then a reissue fee with change and or cancellation fee will be applied.
The TA would know what to do.. No need to tell them about this "OPEN" business. The e-ticket is the key. If it doesn't get submitted to refunds, it will stay there in GDS cyber space.
. Is this a common enough task that I don't need to worry?
It's a bit unclear to me why this is a better strategy than simply booking something as far out as possible, then just rebooking final itinerary one it is known. Does leaving the ticket open avoid at least one of the two change fees that the alternative straegy would incur?
Cos each time you make a change, you will be charged a change fee , and possibly a reissue fee. And a total reprice if the fare doesn't exist anymore. The BMI agent is trying to save you money! If however, if you make only one change later on, then you will only be charged once for the change, cancellation and or repricing fare.
But when you next time present us with your troubles,
PLEASE state the full itinerary, dates of travel so that I (or someone with CRS) will be able to tell you exactly what to do. We can't guess and it wastes precious time (mine anyway) to try and guess what it is ...
FYI - not all TAs are created equal. And yes, they do know what to do otherwise they shouldn't be called a TA.