Originally Posted by
aloenne
Hi,
Currently on a DGLOB34 ticket, with the scheduled next segment being AA from MIA-LAX tomorrow. From the information I gathered from this thread in particular, I thought date/time changes would be fairly straightforward.
However, called BA today (issuing airline) regarding a request to move the ticket from the 30th of April to the 20th of May - same routing (MIA-LAX).
After the customer representative came back to me having spoken to the fares desk I was informed that no flights whatsoever was avaliable in the whole month of May with AA on this routing. I said to her I have seen plenty of inventory, and that there also are several flights a day (I informed her we would be flexible on date/flight times).
The reason they could not do this was because the available seats had to be exactly in the same fare class (guess this means price) as when I originally booked the ticket (september 2015). The only option they had was to book me in economy class, with no option to pay the extra price difference between the fare classes either.
I was quite surprised by this as I thought this would be a straightforward change.
I called up the AA RTW desk, and he said he could see inventory on business (domestic first) on the 24th and 26th. After a call back to BA giving them this information they were able to change dates after all - but to the 24th (with no change fee)
At the end happy to have resolved the situation.
Has anyone else experienced similar situations? Is it correct that availability for DGLOB tickets have to be exactly in the same fare (price) category as the original booking - with no option of paying a change fee?
Thanks for your advice!
Kind regards,
Alf
The rules for an xONEx, which is the bulk of this thread, and an xGLOBnn are slightly different.
Both rule sheets are quite clear about what booking class is allowed. For the business class tickets, most flights book into D, generally a discount business class fare "bucket". Other business class fares are often filed under J or C. The J and C "buckets" can't be used for DONEx's or DGLOBnn's. So while an airlines website might be showing availability in business for a set flight, there may not be any D seats left for sale, thus that flight can't be used for a oneworld ticket, unless the airline chooses to open a D seat for sale.
Also, once travel has started, any oneworld member airline can make changes to the ticket. If the ticket was issued by BA, BA are the only ones who can touch it before travel. After starting the ticket, AA could have made the change.