Originally Posted by dvs7310

My suspicion it that it's now too late to make any pre-departure changes, so plan to fly what you have, but date changes should still not be a problem. As of now, MH is the only one remaining with the ex-CAI fare, which AA can book with, but if they already used the CX fare to ticket yours I'm not sure it can be changed. (I'm not 100% sure on that, but I know when QF ticketed mine it was either the RJ or QF fare and when I dropped RJ it didn't trigger an increase, which the QR fare would have). Maybe ask them if they can ticket a new one on the MH fare and cancel the one you're unhappy with AFTER the new one issued (since we know AA doesn't ticket immediately, you could loose both if not careful).

I imagine that after the dust settles, the existing tickets will get treated no differently than one issued from any other departure point. AA agents are likely being conservative when setting expectations because there hasn't been a massive fare increase on these for a long time. There's no precedence in the past for re-faring on a change after the first segment is flown. We'll see of course and I've little doubt QF will be the least pleasant to deal with, but fortunately for me, I was quick to make the necessary changes right after ticking as I fully expected this fare to end in its current form and am very happy to fly the ticket I have with the exception of date changes on the last 3 segments.