I recently flew YHZ-YUL-FRA-MAN-(stop) LHR-YYZ-YHZ. It was an Air Canada ticket in Z fare class. It was all on Air Canada metal except FRA-MAN which was Lufthansa.

My meeting ended early in FRA and so I asked Lufthansa if I could do a same day change to an earlier flight. The request was at the Service Counter. The agent spent a considerable amount of time recalculating the ticket and said it would cost $1200!

She said try Air Canada. I went to ticketing and the cost was $800.....$450 for the change and the remainder because the original fare bucket wasn't available.....I said that in Canada, at Air Canada, we could do same day changes but she said that wasn't possible.

So I went back to the Lounge and then, at the last minute, I thought what would be the harm of going to the gate. I went to the gate, the gate agent said this is a Z fare, let me see. He tore my boarding pass and gave me a new one for the earlier flight with no charge.

I am not sure what I learned from this. I had always thought that ticketing knew everything about everything. Maybe I learned that gate agents can help sometimes!!

People at this site always point out that actions like these will be audited but I wonder if he bent the rules or if it makes a difference at the gate.....of note, neither flight was oversold

My initial reaction was that you got lucky but it turns out the gate agent was correct. That's a good reminder, thanks.

https://www.aircanada.com/en/agents_...eStructure.pdf

Not on domestic/transborder Z though:

https://www.aircanada.com/en/agents_..._fare_grid.pdf

From the above

*If travel originates in Europe, the Middle East or
Africa
, the following exceptions apply:
Tango
: No changes are permitted.
Flex and
Business Class Lowest
: Changes (for a fee) may be permitted.

Might have been confused between a future change versus the same day free change...

Always have to remember that these agents deal with multiple airlines; always good to have a print out or the link handy

Interesting. I am 99% sure there used to be a fee when doing a same-day confirmed change unless you had purchased a "business class flexible" fare.

Unless I'm mistaken "business class lowest" fares didn't use to allow going standby at all (and certainly not free of charge).

This is interesting -- I didn't think this was possible

It does say "fee MAY apply" on AC -- who knows what that means or how much $$
http://www.aircanada.com/en/news/one...ex_europe.html

All of the above are applicable for AC-operated flights only. I don't think LH offers free same day change, even on fully flexible J.

Any airline offers any day changes to a fully flexible J fare.

Wait...does that mean something like ZRH-YYZ-SFO should have no change fee on YYZ-SFO (because it's an international FARE), or $75 because it's a transborder segment?

I forgot to PM Ben about being charged when the website clearly said no charge for SDC, but this reminded me.