Originally Posted by
JAXBA
I think we'll find that because the outbound is being changed, the whole itinerary is being repriced at today's rates, but using the return segment as currently booked (and has been booked for x days/weeks/months) meaning the lower fares won't quote, as they would need to be ticketed within so many hours of the booking being made.
On your next call OP, either ask the agent to cancel and rebook your return from availability, or switch your return to another flight/date/gateway and see what happens...
It seems to make sense to not touch the return that isn't changing, but that's probably what's not helping here. If return availability was an issue then leaving it alone would probably be best, but since lower fares are still selling, letting the space go and rebooking might just work.
I *guess* it's something along these lines then ... or perhaps yet even screwier.
Comments here made me do more experimentation and I also started including the return flight in it. (Which I thought to be completely inflexible but looks like it's not.)
Result:
Changing only outbound: See above.
Changing only the return flight: Mostly ₤300 sharp, whether I'm changing the date or not IIRC.
But changing both:
Whether I change date or not, I see some +₤75 PE options (yay, reasonable!). But if I pick one of them, on the next screen I am
not at all allowed to make any changes to the return flight! (Even though I am allowed to pick any of them if I change the inbound only. So availability itself appears okay, right?)
So instead I have to pick the one I already had, at which point it warns me that making no changes on the return invalidates the +₤75 it offered on the first screen.
So then it throws me back at that first screen with the massive prices I knew of.
And this all is with just date changes, not even with the destination change that I wanted.
[edit] Oh yes, and cancelling is not attractive either, they'll keep half of the original ticket price instead of the sometimes promised ₤150/300.
I had never heard of DIFs so far, that sounds messy if
https://gingertravelguru.com/2017/07...ns-with-fares/ is accurate. The article mentions only BA themselves can interpret them properly, would that mean that for example ITA indeed gave me a ticket that is not actually possible ATM?
[MENTION=62959]Andriyko[/MENTION]: Originally purchased on the afternoon of 17th Sep. How can you get more exact fare rules/buckets from that, I wonder?
[MENTION=677056]ckx2[/MENTION]: Glad I am not the only one. Given the surprised response from call center folks when I called as well, I really do wonder what's going on...