FlyerTalk Forums - View Single Post - New booking changing ticket condition question
Old Sep 29, 2020, 12:33 pm
  #4  
yvrcnx
 
Join Date: Jul 2005
Location: YVR
Programs: AC MM
Posts: 1,478
Originally Posted by irishguy28
Yes, you will always have to pay the fare difference.

It's just part of the basic "architecture" of airline fare systems. If it were possible to change tickets to any desired date simply by paying the change fee, then there would be a mini-industry of people searching for the cheapest date for their given route, and then paying the change fee to change to their actual desired date; it would make no sense for the airline to charge fares that were greater than the lowest-available fare plus the change fee, because then you would just buy the "wrong" date, and change it to the date for which they were originally charging a much higher fare.

The pandemic hasn't changed this; the only dispensation is that they will waive the change fee. Fare differences must always be paid.



I would sincerely advise you NOT to buy a ticket until you know you actually need to travel. Given the likelihood of the airline travel disruption lasting well into next year, the "lure" of a cheap price now shouldn't be what forces your hand. If anything, you may obtain a better price later.

And regardless of the waiver of change fees - which I expect will be the "new normal" for quite some time to come - I would not see that as a reason to now book a ticket for a date for which you are not fully committed.
Thank you, that does make sense and I understand.

We actually flew from YVR to Zurich a couple of days ago on a one way ticket.
We are not sure yet how long we are staying in Europe and this ticket would be for us to fly back home.

So we definitely need to fly from the EU back to YVR at some point and my thought was to instead of buying a one way, to buy a return since we are planning to be back in Spring anyway and to add the return portion would only add an additional EURO 150 - 200 per ticket which would be a great value but if for some reason we do end up having to change our return to Europe it might actually end up priced higher with the fare difference (depending on how they would calculate the new fare) than purchasing a separate ticket when we are coming back though tickets from YVR always seem to be priced at over CAN$ 1,000 and right now the round trip from EU is about CAN$ 650.

I hope this makes sense but you did answer my question and it will help me greatly make the right decision.

Thank you again!
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