countmookle

Jebby_ca

I believe your entire ticket takes on the most restrictive fare conditions, even though you booked a fully refundable segment.

Trying a dummy booking on aircanada.com, I see that even for the Business Class Flexible segment, it is displaying a change and cancellation fee if the other segment is in Business Class Lowest. When both segments are Business Class Flexible, the fee goes away when you click on the fare conditions.

jc94

Correct.

Furthermore however, given booking a one way ticket with AC (and indeed anyone who flies direct EU-NA) tends to cost massively more I'm not sure even full J (Business Flexible) would allow a complete refund on the return segment after using the first without AC re-calculating the ticket cost and imposing a penalty.

While the one way stuff is more obvious with standard non (fully) refundable economy fares, even with J you can see that a trial booking one way LHR YYZ is $9316.. Whereas a return is $6569+$6274.
Also on the one way they only offer flexible, despite when I book the same day as a outbound on a return I can see P for 1/3 of the cost.
I don't see AC giving you $6k back if you book J both ways and cancel the return. But I don't know enough of the small print to know if they specifically exclude this option. Even if they don't, I imagine you'd face a legal battle.

If you don't want to use the return for some reason, you're best of booking it into a lower fare class but be aware that as stated above whatever conditions apply on that lower class then apply to the entire ticket.
Or book a one way. FI does acceptable one way fares, as they stop in KEV on way. About $2-3k for lowest J depending upon dates. Of course, FI J isn't lie-flat.

Or use points.

SparseFlyer

The answer: The return segment is not fully refundable, especially after the outbound segment is used.

james dean

The thing is while the fare is not refunded the value will sit on your account as credit for a year. If your going to be flying anyway you can tap into the credit for future travel. Not sure if a fee applies on a Business Flex, but one caveat is that on your next booking you have to use all of the $$. In other words you loose your remaining credit if you book a flight cheaper than the credit you hold.

SparseFlyer

Just a couple things important to note:

1. There's no such thing as an account with credit with AC
2. Most restrictive rule applies on international tickets.
3. When doing an exchange, if the previously used segment was a partially combined round trip fare (which is nearly all cheaper international fares, RT fares combined on a half RT basis), whatever you decide to change the return must be for a fare that can be partially combined with the original outbound. If it isn't, the original outound must be re-priced at the level you would've paid had you purchased one of the fares available at the time that was a one way fare. Then you can use the residual value (if any) to pay for a new itinerary.
4. Partially used tickets can be exchanged to something else, but all travel must be completed within one year of the original departure date. Not one year of cancellation.

So unless OP decides to cancel his YYZLHR return flight to specifically do a one way between Canada-Europe to a destination that is combinable with the original outbound, and return at least within one year of departure, I would say he is better off considering the cash gone. Even changing to just a later date can be tricky if his original outbound was a 3 month max fare and he returns after 4 months.

james dean

wow, sounds complicated, I've only been refunded or credited on complete return trips, sounds like this case is a can of worms!

SparseFlyer

Yeah. But the nice thing is that there seems to be more and more decent one way international fares.

I know China has quite a bit and quite often.

Japan even had attractive one way P fares.

CharlieBryant

Wow, now I will also know. Thank you.^