Originally Posted by
r0gerthat
Let's say you have a (hypothetical) routing to fly DUS-AMS-YVR-HNL through AFKL & partners on 1/10/2022 (not a last minute change). Due to some schedule changes, this route is no longer viable on this day (e.g. the AMS layover is too short now). What is the customer services' rep freedom to help you out within the involuntary reroute policies if you mention you cannot make the DUS-AMS but prefer to depart from BCN instead (again, examples, not actual routes)? This could be because a variety of reasons / changing plans
I have an experience where this was done without questioning, which I think is top notch service - but from what I read in this thread, the consensus is that these kind of questions are considered 'additional' or 'extra' and therefor trigger fare difference payments. In my case, fare difference would've definitely be there, it wasn't a full fare ticket and the new origin is usually priced higher than the original one.
As irishguy28 states, this makes it a completely different ticket on a completely different route on a completely different fare basis. What you can ask for is to travel DUS-HNL via different route, via same route on a different day, or from a different nearby airport - BRE, HAJ, FRA should all make sense and at the end of the day AMS is also close by (relatively speaking).
BCN is in a completely different direction, several hours away even by flight.
If this was done without questioning - then I can surmise that either additional collection was 0, small enough that the agent just waived it, or they were busy and considered the loss worth a quick resolution.
Originally Posted by
milesaddict
It boils down to who you're dealing with, yeah they have a guideline for sure but they can bend the rule depending on each case. It's what I expect from them. A leeway to make us satisfied and stress free.
I have 2 trips coming up, TPE and SFO, both got flights canceled months in advance. I was able to change routings.
For TPE, it was BUD-AMS-TPE round trip. KL canceled TPE on both my dates. I could have taken CI from AMS. It would have been an obvious choice but I would have had to change my date. I could have but I wanted to have options, they could reroute me with KE but the PCR test in ICN was a no go. As a result, I played a bit and created a better routing confort wise
BUD-CDG then 2 days later CDG-SIN-TPE and back on the same journey.
For SFO, it was a DUB-CDG-SEA-SFO. AF pushed my SEA by a day, so I asked to remove the DUB-CDG and start my trip in CDG. Granted
and since AF removed the 350 to SEA, I'll fly instead via AMS and DL to SEA.
For TPE, you still flew BUD-TPE. It's entirely feasible that the routing and stopover were both legal according to fare rules of your fare. The airline ate potential tax difference because it was irrops and all was well.
In case of SFO, this is a bit more complicated procedure, but then instead of changing the overall routing, you dropped a segment. From ticketing and faring perspective, that's a different action than creating a new segment on a totally different departure point.
Further the change of routing to go via AMS, the same applies as the first case = you change the intermediate points, but not origin and/or destination