Can't change date for LAX-HEL-HKG for entire of Jan/Feb (PRO availability only??)
Facing a somewhat bizarre situation. Flown the outbound segment of an open jaw economy ticket SIN-HEL-JFK//LAX-HEL-HKG. Return segment is booked for end Feb but a personal situation requires me to return to SIN much earlier (have a separate ticket from HKG-SIN on CX) and I called AY to check on the availability in Jan.
Crazily, I was told that changing the date to any other date in Jan and even Feb for this specific routing LAX-HEL-HKG would require a topup of ~1200 EUR per adult (you can purchase 2 return tickets from LAX to HKG on other OW carriers at this price!). Thought the agent must have made a mistake and was going to HUACA but while checking the rough availability myself I was shocked to find that all dates in entire of Jan and Feb had only PRO fare availability for this specific routing. Checking the individual segments LAX-HEL and HEL-HKG with return in either direction however showed plenty of availability for basic and light fares on most dates starting from mid Jan. Random searches for LAX-HEL-SIN (just wanted to have a comparison) didn't have the same issue as well and there was decent basic fare availability.
This just seems like someone in AY arbitrarily deciding to block basic and value availability for no good reason... with the protests still ongoing in HKG one would have thought otherwise...
Both legs for my ticket were booked in basic and date changes were supposed to be allowed for a nominal change fee. I just find it ridiculous that I can't make a simple date change for an entire month in Jan which is supposed to be low season. Anyone has any suggestions on how to approach this issue?