Originally Posted by
Waggy
So I thought I might book myself on a flight at 9pm and then could change earlier or later or even back fromChicago with minimum cost if I booked the return leg at £4.2k which would be at most a £600 extra cost now rather than waiting another 10 days for my plans to be fixed by which time the return flights may all be in excess of £4.2k.
At first glance, I find it difficult to see how you could end up spending more than £4.2K on the fare if you were to buy a semi-flex (R, D or C class) and then change on the day to a J class fare, in circumstances in which you wouldn't be having to up-fare even if you had a J class ticket.
Even if you have a J class ticket, it doesn't entitle you to a change to another flight come what may. The flight to which you want to change must have availability in J class. It's true that if it does, then on the day you can probably change to that flight for free (no change fee, no fare difference).
If you have a semi-flex ticket and you want to change on the day to another flight, and that flight only has J class left, you then pay the £300 change fee plus the fare difference to the J class fare. It would be very likely to be the same J class fare as you would originally have bought if you'd started off by buying a J class fare.
The only situation I can think of in which, on the day, you'd end up having to pay the change fee from an R, D or C class fare plus an up-fare to a more expensive fare than that J class fare is if there is no J class left on the flight you want, and you are having to up-fare to an A or F class fare and fly back in First. But if that is the case, your flexible ticket wouldn't have helped you either: you can't simply change that to a flight on which there is no J class, and even if you had a J class ticket your desired change would still require you to up-fare to that A or F class fare (albeit with no change fee).
That's why I find it a little difficult to see why, with your travel plans, you'd need a J class ticket for the way back even if you were to buy the ticket now and not risk all of CW selling out on the day that you want over the next 10 days.
Hopefully, if my logic is faulty, one of the fare experts can put this right.
The other factor is this: If you were to book the last flight back from NYC, would it be a disaster if you finished early and you could get to JFK early? With that many flights from JFK to LHR in a short space of time, AIUI it sometimes happens that it helps JFK to put passengers from later flights onto earlier flights if they are there and ready to go.
Originally Posted by
Waggy
Anyway my real question was that if I wanted to do this how I could go about booking this since I called BA and they told me I couldn’t combine a R or D class fare on the way out with a J fare on the way back but I may have just got a useless agent!
I think that's not true. This can be priced by ITA, so BA should be able to book it.