Originally Posted by
wh6cto
Fare rules are infinitely more complex than we think, and combining them makes things even worse. So I'm not sure if any of this will work. Then again, the cost of the short MR plus change fee may be $400, so out of the $650ish potential, your net would be $250, which is hardly worth it. But if you need to go out to LAX (or any of 90%+ of US destinations) anyway, this may be more reasonable to do, as your cost would only be the change fee.
Good luck!
Likely even more-complex than the example you gave, since there were segments both on UA and COPA. SFO-MEX on UA, the remainder on COPA. At this point it's an academic excercise because I'm not even going to try and go through the process again; the original ticket was $1100 or so, so even if it priced the same as two one-ways, $550 less $250 change fee and we've only got $300 to play with. 35 minutes on the first phone call, who knows how much on another... maybe, if I can find the rules for the original ticket, and I have the time, I'll try and figure out what could be done with it, and give a possibly-workable option to the agent.
It's important to recognize that the agents, even at the rate desk, are looking at hundreds of different sets of rules so there's no possible way for them to instantly have a handle on dealing with each variant. On the other hand, if we, at FT, spend untold hours analyzing just one rule, we may know more about how to deal with it than the poor person at the rate desk.
Which does not in any way denigrate their capabilities or willingness to help!