Cancellation, Changes and Upgrades
Sep 10, 2006, 4:27 pm
#1
Original Poster
Join Date: Apr 2005
Location: UK
Programs: IC Hotels Spire, BA Gold
Posts: 8,685
Cancellation, Changes and Upgrades
A couple of quick questions on cancelling a fully refundable M fare and itinerary changes where an upgrade has already been secured.
1. The AC web-site says something like "Itinerary changes can be done via the web-sire, cancellations must be done by calling Reservations". So my question is if cancelling, roughly how long does it take for the money to be credited back to the CC?. Is this more-or-less instant with AC, or does it take some weeks (as has happened to me with one airline recently
)
2. If a pax has a booking on an M fare with instant SWU J u/g confirmed and subsequently changes their itinerary on the web-site, what happens to the J u/g they had on this sector?. Does this automatically get xferred across to the new flight (if I class available?) Or does the pax have to make the change on the web-site and then go through the process again of immediately calling the res centre to request the J u/g for the new sector?
1. The AC web-site says something like "Itinerary changes can be done via the web-sire, cancellations must be done by calling Reservations". So my question is if cancelling, roughly how long does it take for the money to be credited back to the CC?. Is this more-or-less instant with AC, or does it take some weeks (as has happened to me with one airline recently
)2. If a pax has a booking on an M fare with instant SWU J u/g confirmed and subsequently changes their itinerary on the web-site, what happens to the J u/g they had on this sector?. Does this automatically get xferred across to the new flight (if I class available?) Or does the pax have to make the change on the web-site and then go through the process again of immediately calling the res centre to request the J u/g for the new sector?
Sep 10, 2006, 10:38 pm
#2
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Jun 2003
Location: YYC
Posts: 23,864
Having gone through this very issue on something like three times in the last couple of days, I think my experience is as follows:
1. It's a pain in the butt.
2. If you have a confirmed upgrade, forget about doing anything on the web.
3. For my last itinerary, a mistake had been made on the last leg YVR-YYC (off by one day; instead of a connection, we would have had to spend a bit over a day at YVR -I guess the original agent did not believe a flight from Asia would arrive on the same day-). Upgrades were confirmed on all the AC legs. When I called back a couple of hours after purchasing the ticket, to correct the mistake, the simplest way the guy found to fix this was to cancel the ticket, but keeping the reservation, to issue a new ticket. Took close to one hour, for sure more than 30 minutes, on the phone.
When you buy a refundable fare, you actually pay for their extra work. What you don't really expect is how much of a pain it can be on your side if you want to take advantage of the flexibility you paid for.
1. It's a pain in the butt.
2. If you have a confirmed upgrade, forget about doing anything on the web.
3. For my last itinerary, a mistake had been made on the last leg YVR-YYC (off by one day; instead of a connection, we would have had to spend a bit over a day at YVR -I guess the original agent did not believe a flight from Asia would arrive on the same day-). Upgrades were confirmed on all the AC legs. When I called back a couple of hours after purchasing the ticket, to correct the mistake, the simplest way the guy found to fix this was to cancel the ticket, but keeping the reservation, to issue a new ticket. Took close to one hour, for sure more than 30 minutes, on the phone.
When you buy a refundable fare, you actually pay for their extra work. What you don't really expect is how much of a pain it can be on your side if you want to take advantage of the flexibility you paid for.