Originally Posted by
cfischer
Yes, intl. complicated trips especially when making changes after ticketing ... that's when the rate desk needs to get involved. Happens all the time.
This was exactly the type of change that I was trying to make (which prompted this thread), and despite spelling out to an agent how to get the price that I was seeing, the rate desk either wouldn't or couldn't replicate it for my first four calls and finally did once I spoke with a supervisor on the fifth call. To make a long (hours on the phone) story short, don't expect agents to believe you when you have a ticket that looks like this:
EWR-SFO-HKG (UA P)
HKG-BKK (CX I)
BKK-HYD (TG C)
That's EWR-SFO-HKG-BKK on a single UA P fare, and a separate TG C fare.
...and when you try to change segments on the return, they reprice it as EWR-SFO-HKG in UA Z, HKG-BKK in CX J, BKK-HYD in TG C instead of keeping the original construction. Getting everything at the price that I expected was
quite the challenge this time around, but a great supervisor got a great rates agent on the phone and made it happen.
And if you have access to GDS (or EF/KVS) and don't believe that CX can fit on a UA EWR-BKK P fare, take a look at the routing rules, and you'll be as surprised as I was that they'd rather send their customers on CX than TG.