Originally Posted by cepheid
Using the reprice feature, I was able to "save" $14.10 per ticket. Of course, it's in the form of vouchers (no credit card refund was available since the tickets are non-refundable) so their usefulness is rather limited... but hey, better than nothing. I think.
I guess we'll see when I try to use them!
I constantly reprice my itineraries, but always do it through dummy bookings for the reasons below, especially the last paragraph!
Think carefully before repricing for such a small savings. They cannot be used online. You will have to redeem the vouchers in person, which would mean an extra trip to the airport, possibly parking charges, as well as the $10 fee to ticket the new purchase you are using them against, as well as forgoing the 1,000 mile booking bonus for that new purchase. IMHO, it is not really cost effective to pursue a fare change less than $25.
I had an interesting experience last month which shed some light on how this works. I am traveling next month SFO-PVR, but in order to put me over the top (50K) by the end of the year for 1P again, I decided to book SFO-ORD-DEN-PVR-SFO with a redeye going out. This was also advantageous because SFO-PVR service was not 7 days a week at the time I purchased the ticket). This would get me into Puerto Vallarta the day I needed to be there, gave me the 2K extra miles I needed, and only cost about $100 more than nonstops.
Just for fun, weeks later I repriced my ticket and the cost went down $0.14 ! Presumably, this is some sort of exchange rate fluctuation on the taxes. However, I did another dummy booking of this exact itinerary and the price went down about $35!
The reason is that repricing only looks at the exact same fare buckets you purchased regardless of whether there are cheaper ones available. This was confirmed by the CSR who dealt with issuing the voucher.
But here's the good part!: As soon as she issued the voucher, it somehow opened up inventory in another fare bucket and
the price dropped another $120! I called back less than 5 minutes later, and had quite a go-around with a new CSR and a supervisor. They both claimed that despite seeing what I was seeing online, there were no seats available in that class of service or any of the two or three classes higher.
Regardless, I convinced them that they really should consult with the "Rate Desk" and issue me the voucher, which they did, and then they discovered that I had just called a few minutes prior, and actually congratulated me on this ^ They also confirmed that your repricing function online only looks at the exact itinerary with the exact same fare buckets for each segment. I always have great interactions with the HNL based 1P CSRs.
Finally, I have always received all my vouchers within a week of calling...probably close to 20 in all. They do add up, which is how I was just able to go to Buenos Aires last week and only pay $200 roundtrip after applying my 2005 accumulated vouchers.