Originally Posted by
ernestnywang
As cxfan1960 correctly pointed out, if HKG-AAA were on a separate ticket to begin with, yes you can choose to no show and it would not impact you (but check if it is refundable and will have value left after the penalty), as it is a stand alone sector on an independent ticket. If this is not the case and your TA still claims that you will be fine without a re-issue (meaning you will get a new e-ticket number that does not include HKG-AAA, with or without payment) without being able to offer you any special documentation from CX (as in that the TA negotiated this special case for you with CX directly), as a part-time TA myself I must beg to doubt whether your TA knows his / her stuffs.
As to whether you should re-issue before or after departure of the first segment, there are some risks that you will have to take. YR has increased in the past few months (and price may or may not be the same, for this we would need very specific information - date of issue, fare basis, and itinerary - on your ticket to figure out), so chances are if you re-issue now, you will have to pay for at least the higher YR if not a higher new fare. If there is an advanced purchase restriction, you might be forced to buy a higher fare. On the other hand, if you wait till your arrival in HKG to change your HKG-AAA flight, by then availability might have run out. Also note that in case everything is on one ticket, then SFO-HKG-AAA is likely one fare component and will have to be priced together. For example, if you have SFO-HKG and HKG-AAA in V class, and right now HKG-AAA has only M class left, you will need to rebook SFO-HKG to M class, too, whether you have flown the segment or not. If you are changing this before first segment is flown, and now SFO-HKG has only H class left, you might not even be able to rebook to M class (this, however, is up to CX's discretion). I know this may seem overly complicated to you, but in short, we can't know with the information we have been provided, and in any case there will be some risks involved.
PS: Back when seat guarantee was possible all the way to V class, it was usually a better idea for GO and DM to re-issue after first segment was flown.
I believe you meant to say "If your connection time is <24 hours, you have a transfer." Transfer and stopover are the standard fare rule terms.
Thank you ernestnywang for the detailed explanation. I could follow most of what you said, except the part about how they calculate the fare difference. It is a R class (PE) fare. The fare basis expired a couple of months ago. If you want and it's not a bother, I can send you more info via pm. I have no status with CX, though I have OWS (AA Plat)..
Can you explain how the fare guarantee works and whether it applies to R class fares? Currently, for the HKG - AAA leg, only W fare is available for the new date that I would like, if they would change it. Does that mean I won't be able to just pay the change fee (or not pay if they waive it)? Would this make any difference for date change or rerouting the outbound to BBB before/after the first segment is flown?