Moved our second trip up from October to April due to unexpected availability on my wife's part. We'd flown the first legs from BUD a few weeks ago, so this was an after departure change. It took two goes on messenger. The original tickets were originally booked as BUD-AMS//AMS-DTW-SDF//BNA-MSP-AMS//AMS-BUD, but it turns out that this fared with DTW as the break point. I changed the "destinations" to BNA and LEX respectively not long after booking, and reroutes to try to preserve D1 Suites had long since removed DTW from the routing when it was parked in July 2020. Upon reinstatement in November, the parked "destinations" were booked without mention of DTW, however, when it came to changing the flights now the first two agents were insistent that the routing had to go through DTW to avoid a reprice.
It seemed fairly evident that they were just throwing out possible reasons rather than having a certain answer why repricing was happening. I was variously told that I couldn't have more than two connections [I already did], that there was a change fee, that changeable fares were repriced even after departure, and that seasonality and/or stopovers could not be changed. Quoting them the fare rules just caused them to move to a different excuse, and one even annotated the PNR that I was "arguing [my] interpretation of the fare rules" - I presume after I pointed out that only I was quoting the rules, and they were not.
The first agent having basically told me to pay the difference or sod off, off I sodded. I untook the second attemp forearmed with backup options routing us through DTW. The second agent here provided some of the above excuses, but did seem willing to try some other options once I "resigned myself" to hitting DTW. She then went on break/off shift and I was picked up by a fantastic third agent who was only too happy to help. Suggested some routings that hadn't seemed to have I space for me, but first tried my backup - which also improved the trip for us, since Nashville was only ever a random tourist stop. Finally that worked...! There was a little extra to pay, so she called me to get the payment details and we ended up having a bit of a chat. She was curious how I knew so much about the fare, so I had to give credit to the teamwork here. She also confirmed that she had been looking up the 2020 fares for repricing, and I offhandedly mentioned that I thought my original request should have refared with the break in NYC and little price change. She went off and looked that up [the previous agent had been the one to do so originally], returning to mention that it should indeed have worked and might even have been a bit cheaper. Having been at it for a good few hours - and also having improved the trip from the original version anyway - I declined her offer to try it. Quite what the first two agents had been refaring against, I'm not sure - I wonder if it could have been the fares from the time of the reinstatement?
So now we have AMS-ORD//MDW-DTW-LEX//LEX-DCA//IAD-CDG-AMS//AMS-BUD coming up, allowing us to visit various people we've not seen since The Before Times. Some notes by way of advice [to justify this lengthy story]:
- Persistence and HUCA clearly key, especially since trying to point out how the fare rules contradict what the agent is saying seemed to fall entirely on deaf ears.
- Neither ITA nor ExpertFlyer were matching what they agents had exactly, so you might have to ask them for suggestions.
- Third agent did say the overwater legs had to be on DL codes, so no XP bonuses AIUI.
- I added two stopovers with this change, don't know exactly what bumped the price up though [about €80 each].
Good luck all!