Originally Posted by
hans
I may need to change a ticketed reservation and need some expert advice. Using round numbers, I have a ticket for $500. If I try to change that reservation to a lower priced route ($300), I get the opportunity to pay $200 as a change fee but there's no acknowledgment that the new itinerary is significantly lower. The new ticket costs $0 according to the change page.
So....can I cancel the existing ticket thereby generating an available balance of $500, buy a new $300 ticket using that balance, pay the $200 change fee and come out with no extra cost?
Assuming you have not flown any part of the itin, there should be no difference between the two approaches. {There maybe the issue one approach shows a different set of flight options, but calling should be all to get any available option.}
A cancel and rebook is essentially just a change flight. But in either case the change fee is new money and the fare difference will generate a ETC for a future flight.
Will move this to a thread that has a wiki with more info.