Change of flights in Covid-19 times

As written before, we already changed our flight tickets from March, 29th, to May, 1st, Valentyna now on SWISS via Zurich instead of Singapore Airlines via Munich.

But these flights were cancelled also, so we had to call to set for a new date.

That would have been easy – but transiting through Singapore before June was getting more and more unrealistic. Therefore, I decided to find out the possibilities to fly from Bangkok directly.

Four different kind of flights were shown for May, 5th:
- Lufthansa (Airbus 340) via FRA to KBP
- Austrian (Thunderbird) via VIE to KBP
- SWISS (Thunderbird) via ZRH to KBP and
- Lufthansa operated by Sunexpress via FRA to KBP

The last two where the lowest appealing variants because both are day-flights, arriving ZRH and FRA in the evening, without a flight to KBP the same day. Yes, maybe I would be allowed into Germany and Switzerland, could sleep in a hotel bed, but for Valentyna this would mean sleeping in the transit zone of the terminal. No, thanks !

So either LH via FRA or OS via VIE, both not offering First Class. But better Business Class than sleeping all night in the airport. And in case Business Class, better OS then the ‘Füssel’-beds of LH. In addition, OS clearly offering the better food.

So I called the Lufthansa Senator callcentre, and, without a minute of wait, talked to a friendly lady. After giving her the booking codes, I explained her the situation, that we would rather prefer to fly from BKK than SIN, since transiting wouldn’t be possible.

She put me on hold for 20 minutes to talk to her supervisor, she informed me that I could change the country of departure, downgrade from First Class to Business Class, but would have to pay the fare difference, just EUR 1’278 !!!

She told me that I booked ‘discounted First Class fare’ (A class) and for the Bangkok – Kiev return they could only offer the most expensive Business Class fare (J). I informed her that this way Lufthansa would lose customers for the future, customers they would desperately need. She put me on hold again, 15 minutes, but then I got the information that on this exceptional case they would put me on D-class-fare, so I would only need to pay EUR 150 minus EUR 50 discount.

Honestly, in these times I don’t care about First- or Business Class – and I would have paid more than EUR 100 for the flight from Bangkok to Singapore. All okay.

The ticket for Valentyna was easier to change: I just returned the Award Ticket (miles at the moment only credited after 4 weeks) and booked a new one, on the same flight. Interestingly the fantasy-taxes for the Bangkok ticket are EUR 50 higher than for the SIN ticket.

But all done – so now I’m waiting for the next round of cancelations next week. But at least we’re already on BKK – KBP instead of SIN – KBP.