cauchy

Hi Flyertalk,

I booked a LHR-YUL ticket on AF. The ticket conditions state:

I spoke to an agent on the telephone and she confirmed that it would be possible to change destinations (I used the example of doing LHR-LAX instead) later if I needed to. When I try to change the booking on airfrance.co.uk, it's only listing alternative airports in the UK and Canada. Presumably, this is just a website limitation and I do not need to worry (and can call the call centre to make the change to a US destination)? Or has something gone very badly wrong?

Thanks for any advice you might have!

Goldorak

atflyer

....destinations usually are clustered by country or continent if you do open jaws. My guess is there will be limits to which destinations you can change, unless your ticket is fully refundable (you basically give back the original and buy something else)..

offvoice

• I believe it’s easier to do this on outbound than inbound (if you don’t catch the last leg of your inbound flight, I’m not 100% sure it doesn’t have any kind of implications for your outbound flight (except if you purchase it on AF Italy, which need to provide tickets compliant with Italian laws that won’t allow to cancel outwards tickets if you didn’t fly your entire onward ticket - but please check carefully beforehand).
• If you are Platinum, do this offer the phone with them, they are very efficient.

Hope it helps, let us know!

atflyer

Usually only dropping the last segment of your ticket works, if you drop an intermediate segment the airline cancels the rest and you loose any subsequent segment of your ticket. Interesting that Italian law forbids this. The Dutch Consumer union tries a lawsuit to AF/KLM to arrange the same. But for now, dropping anything else as dropping the last segment makes you loose the remainder of your ticket.

offvoice

Yes, I found this "loophole" thanks tio the folks from Flight-report. Here is an extract from their term of carriage :

You can buy tickets "from Italy, France, from Europe leaving from: Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Norway, Portugal, United Kingdom, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, as well as from Brazil, Canada, Japan, South Africa, Thailand, the United States of America and Venezuela"

And the following will apply

"The fare is applicable for a ticket used fully, in sequential order for the specified journey and on the specified dates. As outlined in the General Conditions of Carriage, any non-compliant use noticed on the day of travel may incur an additional fixed-rate fee at the airport for the amount of: €125 on short-haul flights (metropolitan France and Corsica), €250 for a medium-haul flight in the Economy cabin, €500 for a medium-haul flight in the Business cabin, €500 for a long-haul flight in the Economy or Premium Economy cabin, €1500 for a long-haul flight in the Business cabin and €3000 for a long-haul flight in the La Premičre cabin (or the equivalent in the local currency.)
By way of derogation from the paragraph above, for passengers with Air France tickets purchased in Italy through www.airfrance.it or by means of Air France ticket offices, travel agencies or Air France call center, the following applies.
Such a passenger is not required to pay an additional fee due to a new calculation and any administrative costs if you inform Air France that you cannot, for any reason, use the ticket for that flight and still want to use the ticket for additional routes or, in the case of multi-destination trip, the return routes.
Such communication must take place within 24 hours after the departure time of the first unused route of the outward flight or, if the departure time of the return flight is within 24 hours of unused flight, at least 2 hours before departure of the return flight by calling our Call Center at +39 0238591272. In the absence of such notice, such passenger will be treated in accordance with the provisions of the preceding paragraph."

cauchy

Thank you everyone for the replies, including the useful tips and tricks!

It looks like this is going to be a real pain to sort out. An AF agent (via Facebook) is now telling me "your ticket is non-refundable and non-changeable." But the "My Bookings" part of airfrance.co.uk tells a very different story:



In principle this problem should be fixable - I've got screenshots and emails that are unambiguous. But I fear the reality might be quite different. Where would be a good place to start?

Goldorak

ijgordon

A good place to start? Well, probably NOT Facebook.
CALL Air France!

Ditto

Indeed, checking the fare rules in expertflyer shows this is non-changeable, non-refundable ticket, so the screenshot seems to be wrong.

Search:Departing LHR on 04/23/19 for YUL
Fare basis code VHUP2SBN
Flying AF
Routing via North Atlantic

cauchy

Thanks for this - much appreciated. I booked this via the 'time to think' option and the email they sent me is very clear that it's changeable, and my position is that I've relied on this. Let's see what AF ends up doing (ultimately, it's either change the ticket or we go down the mis-selling path, which I'd like to avoid if at all possible!).

brunos

I assume that you still want to do what you stated in your initial post, change the destination from YUL to some other NA point.
I don't think that your screenshot implies that it can be done at no charge. Maybe your email is more explicit but a "change" is usually date/time as pointed out by Goldorak.

There seems to be an obvious AF IT error. But you only give a printscreen of the top part of the fare conditions. Below this, AF states that Modifications may require the payment of a fare difference in addition to the above change fee. They also give the fare code .(VHUP2SBN) which would be the contractual details. I guess that you only paid some EUR300 for that ticket. But they could easily argue that the repricing to a CDG-LAX would be expensive even with a zero change fee.

cauchy

I wasn't expecting to avoid a fare difference when changing destinations - just no further change fee. The LHR-LAX fare would be significantly less than what I paid for LHR-YUL, and of course, no refund of the difference would be expected.