Originally Posted by
noobynoob
Anyway, I called and felt that there weren't really many options. The TA said they cannot move the return +-1 day because there is no MAD-YYZ on those dates. They could move +-2 days which isn't very useful for me because then I have to adjust all the accommodations and travel plans. They also said the outbound flight has to remain LH (but no BOS-FRA the day after; no BOS-MUC on either the day or the day after - basically not useful if it cannot be changed to a non-LH flight) and inbound has to remain AC - this doesn't seem to be in the guidelines, but I get that they would want to prefer to keep the operators as is
A schedule change isn't carte blanche to get you whatever you want.
In this case, the easy option is to put you on a later flight to BOS. The only consequence is you get to BOS a couple hours later than originally scheduled.
One point I think you may be missing is that a number of those re-booking options are stated in the tariff are
at the carrier's option.If you don't like the options they give you, you can accept a refund. And they would undoubtedly get in trouble if they didn't offer you something reasonable. But a slightly later YYZ-BOS is eminently reasonable.
Under the terms of the tariff AC is absolutely within its rights to say that you can't change the outbound or impose other restrictions on what you can re-book to. Nor is it
unreasonable to say they're not going to let you change the outbound just because your return will get in a couple hours later.
At best, you might be able to get them to re-book you MAD-FRA/ZRH-BOS or something like that. But they're probably going to tell you you can have the later YYZ-BOS, that (although it sounds like that may not be an option), or pound sand and they'll just refund you. The guidelines for TAs that were posted above are probably the best indication for you of what they'll actually do.