Alec84

I very rarely need to change a flight, but am in the situation now. The answer to this question is probably universal, but since I'm booked on AF, I ask here. I know that I won't be able to be on the flight that I'm originally booked on. I do have free changes, but I will only know my exact return date after my original return date has passed. There is a possibility that I will purchase a new flight altogether, since many of them are in the same price range as changing my AF flight. If I just guess a return date and book that one, I risk loosing the money if the date is too early again. Some days are crazy expensive with AF (think thousands of Euros), so no possibility to change to those dates. So, is there a way to put my flight "on hold" and decide the new date only when I know for sure when I need to travel?

physicsdude

If you have free changes (meaning that AF cancelled the flight and automatically rebooked you), then you can do a rebooking to the outbound date you are sure of and do a rough estimate of when you will return. From my experience, if you say that you can't make the first flight of either the outbound or inbound, they will do a free rebooking if it's reasonable enough, except at the Philippines call center.

Alec84

My bad, I was unclear.

- by free changes I meant that the ticket type allows changes without a fee, but with fare difference

- I am already at the destination and am talking about the return (inbound) part of my trip

pascalgr

I assume you have ticket with free change (so no light fare),; If you do not know the date you want to fly back, you need to change the flight to a later date with if possible no fare difference : you can push until the end of the validity of your ticket. Once the change is done, you will be able once you know your final date you want to fly back to change to the right date with of course the risk to have a fare difference to pay.

The key thing is to do the first change to a date with no fare difference because if your final flight has a fare lower than the one you rebook you will not be reimbursed.

Alec84

Thanks! That’s pretty much what I was trying to achieve. One more really silly question, if I rebook into J, can I then again rebook once more back to Y, assuming that the J fare allows changes without extra fee?

pascalgr

Yes you can change from J to Y but you risk to have overpaid Y as there will be no credit given (except maybe the difference in taxes in some countries where J has more tax than Y) assuming the J fare is usually higher than the Y fare . You can also go from J to W ;

Alec84

Thanks guys, I really appreciate your help. Despite 652 flights and time spent daily on FT, this is all relatively new and unclear for me

Xandrios

While absolutely true, I'm not sure that - when downgrading from J to Y - you'd be able to use the full value of your J ticket towards the cheapest Y ticket.

In the past there used to be a rule that you could never downgrade from a more expensive fare to a cheaper one. Obviously that rule is not in place as going from J to Y is a fare downgrade (and allowed), however chances are that when you do that not all of the cheapest Y fares can be chose. I can imagine that only the next Y fare more expensive than what you have paid can be selected (meaning a payment is required).

Does anybody know about the rules when downgrading cabin, any experiences?