I am new to EK and was hoping I could get some advice from the regulars here. I have a XXX-DXB-YYY return ticket in First Saver (A) booked through a TA. I need to change the departure airport, which would increase the ticket cost but only marginally (around EUR 700 extra). When checking the new itinerary online, A class is wide open (A4) on all sectors. However, when the TA attempts to do the change and reprice the ticket, they are telling me that EK is not allowing A class on the return flights (which weirdly enough are the ones that are not changing) and is pushing those into F. So, they are ending up with an overall ticket cost that is almost $2,500 higher than what it would be if we were buying a new ticket (no problem getting all sectors in A if buying from scratch rather than changing it).

An apparently easy solution would be to cancel and rebook, since the change or cancel fee is exactly the same (and the TA can easily see/book the new itinerary if done from scratch). However, there is a client account involved and chasing the refund + re-authorising the new charges would take ages, so not a solution I’d want to go for.

Has anyone had similar issues when processing changes and being unable to rebook in fare buckets that are otherwise clearly available? Any workaround known out there?