Originally Posted by
ajcopley
Actually I forgot that since it's two separate bookings, it would be $800 in change fees ($100 per person (x4), per flight (x2)). So really it's only a $200 difference between the future travel credit and AC wallet (not $600 as I originally stated).
But I'm still not sure if my understanding of the AC Wallet vs. future travel credit is correct.
The net amount available, when factoring in the change fees, should be the same (by the way, assuming a $100 change fee and no tax on that fee, I get $148 as the difference, not $200).
You haven't provided any details on your flights, so it's hard to offer any specific comments, but here are a few points to consider:
- Have you double-checked that the change fee is $100 for each of these itineraries? AC has all sorts of different change fees - I recall during COVID someone posted about a $44 change fee on a Flex fare to Asia, for instance
- Do the two itineraries have different points of sale? The sales taxes applicable to the change fee could be different. For instance, if you buy a YYC-YUL trip, it will have 5% GST. If you buy YUL-YYC on its own, it will have GST as well as 10% QST. The after-tax change fee would therefore be higher on YUL-YYC than on YYC-YUL, even if the change fee was the same
- Is the second itinerary an international one? Some jurisdictions require certain taxes to be refunded if the ticket is cancelled, even on a non-refundable ticket. Is it possible that you would actually get a refund of some amount alongside the credit to your wallet? If you're leaving it as future flight credit, that calculation wouldn't be done until you actually change the ticket. If you're getting a refund of, say, $148 alongside your credit to the wallet, it would net out the same (note that I don't know how AC has implemented this requirement with the wallet; it's possible that they don't have it set up to provide that refund and just send the entire amount to the wallet, in which case this would not be applicable)