Originally Posted by
crazy8534
I am looking at some flight prices (not booking, just keeping an eye in case I do book BA when they fix their bonuses and comparing price to AF etc.).
I haven't seen these choices before:
It seems a bit odd- pay £100 more to be able to refund for £300 instead of £150 or £200 to be fully flex or c.£4k more to.... also be fully flex...??
Only one of these is an F fare, the others are A fares (or at least the fare conditions are properly fully flex).
The difference being the change fee and refund fee.
If you change the A you will need to pay the fare difference and there are some changes you can't make, so would have to refund and rebook (at a time when there may be only full F fares left).
The 'real' F is truly flexible and almost any changes can be done either before or during travel for no fee, and you can change it multiple times.
It's the same with economy fares. A true Y fare can cost a fortune but is extremely flexible. Then all the other fares come with more and more restrictions the cheaper they are.
Most people paying for themselves would never buy a fully flex fare because it is almost always cheaper to cancel and rebook. Some businesses used to have a policy of booking flexible fares, but I suspect most (like my employer about 10 years ago) have now realised that is daft. Instead of buying a fully flex ticket and letting the employee sort out issues directly with the airline, they employ a travel company to do the required legwork if changes are required (with varying degrees of competence).