Originally Posted by wideman
I'm wondering how this gets interpreted for RTW tickets, particularly where the buyer acknowledges that seats will be limited.
For example, consider city pairs that have less than daily service, such as QF's DPS-PER flight, which operates only on Wednesdays. Could one show up at Denpasar on a Saturday and insist on QF flying them to Perth on that day, claiming Rule 80/90? Or would QF not be within their rights to state that seats are limited, and the next available A/D/L seat is available on the following Wednesday?
If QF could do that (and it seems reasonable to me that they could), is it not an extension of that theory to say that AA could offer you its next available A/L seat from Dallas to Anchorage, and that seat happens to be 4 months from now?
You need to understand the reasons Rule 80/90 may be activated. If the pax has a confirmed reservation/ticket and the airline refuses to carry them, then that is involuntary cancellation and the airline is responsible for getting the pax to the destination.
If the pax has an open dated ticket and turns up demanding a seat, the airline has not responsibility to carry them on that day. If they are ticketed in A and there is no A, or D and only Y then they travel in Y as per the fare rules for AONEx fares, with no compensation paid. If there are no seats on the flight, they can be booked on the next available flight that does have seats, even if it is three weeks later. That is the risk with an open ticket.
BUT if the airline no longer flies the route for which an open dated ticket is held, the airline has to get the pax to the ticketed destination within the validity period of the ticket, not on any specific date (it is an open dated ticket) unless the ticket holder had made a dated reservation for that route which was originally purchased as open dated.
So the only time this may be an issue is right at the end of the validity of the RTW ticket. The OneWorld Explorer and Global Explorer fares are valid for 12 months, Circle Pacific fares are valid for 6 months. If the open dated sector cannot be accommodated with a seat (in any cabin per the fare rules) before the end of the fare validity, there may be a responsibility under these tariff rules to get the pax to the next destination. However, that would only be a reality for the last sectors of the fare, since any subsequent coupons will have the validity date and the coupons must be used in order.
So if, say coupon number 5 or 20 is open dated on a route no longer operated by the carrier, they could leave it until the very last day of the entire ticket validity to get you to the destination shown on coupon 5. Now you have a problem with the validity of coupons 6-20 which all expire on the same date! This is the passenger's risk with an open dated ticket. The carrier for coupon 5 has met their obligation. The fact that coupons 6-20 are now expired is not their problem.
And having a dated reservation for coupon 6 does not change the validity of coupon 5, nor the obligation of the carrier for coupon 5 to get you to the origin of coupon 6 by that date if coupon 5 is open dated. Again, the risk of open dated tickets is with the ticket holder. My recommendation is to make a dated reservation as soon as you know the dates - you can change dates, flight numbers and carriers at any time (for all but the first international sector) for no charge. And if you have a dated reservation, the carrier is obliged to carry you on that date to that destination, and you are protected by the tariff rules as well as most travel insurance policies. With open dated tickets you remove some of that protection. Of course, travel delays due to weather etc reduce of remove the carrier's liability.