Originally Posted by
Porcepic
What do you mean by this? I understand your caution about the change fees (many ppl indeed often interpret the "no change fee" as a "no fare difference to be paid" which is false), but I don't understand it about the refunds. If your ticket is refundable, you are totally reimbursed, aren't you?
No.
KLM describes its tickets as "non-refundable" or "refundable".
The first, "non-refundable", means that none of the fare can be returned to you even if you tell them you won't be travelling.
"Refundable" means that at least part of the fare will be returned to you if you tell them.
It does not mean that there are no cancellation fees.
Only the most expensive, fully-flexible tickets (YBM in Economy) tend to allow free refunds. Even in business class, there are often cancellation fees.
Originally Posted by
Porcepic
Whether you should buy the cheapest ticket available or a Flex ticket should be assessed not only though money but also time, risk... and btw seems a bit off-topic.
That's why I have been constantly querying the OP as to why they think buying a Flex ticket is a good idea, because they don't make sense in many cases.
I think the OP thinks that the flexible ticket can be cancelled easily and without ANY penalty. The OP also seems to suggest that (s)he would be happy to book on a different airline at the time they determine they will cancel their KLM ticket. Having had a KL flex ticket, of course, does not give them any "advantage" if they end up travelling with SK or DY. They will end up paying whatever SK or DY is charging at that time.
As such, it makes no sense to have bought a KL ticket, flex or not, if there is every chance that travel will actually be on a different airline.
And even if the OP does end up using the Flex ticket to move to a different KL flight, in most cases this will still mean that
the OP will have paid more to travel on the flight they eventually select than if they purchased that ticket outright at the time they make the change.
As such, I am still trying to understand why the OP wants to do this. My advice:
if the goal is to save as much money as possible: select a flight now that gives more than enough time for the OP to do whatever it is they need to do before departing for CPH. The flight from ICN appears to arrive at 6am in the morning, so the OP can basically pick any flight to CPH that day and be guaranteed NOT to miss it.
if the goal is to get to CPH with the minimum of "waiting time" at AMS: buy a ticket upon arrival at AMS for the next available departing flight. This will likely be no more expensive than having had a "Flex" ticket already which they then need to change to this new flight.