sand372

Hi All,
I have a return international flight with AA this Saturday in Business and the ticket is I class.
My plans have changed and because AA couldn't provide me a ticket on the same fare for the date I need I had to buy another flight.
Now I have the return flight available but am not sure which date I can use it.
Any option for AA to put that flight on hold or something similar or must I move the flight to another specific date?

Doc Savage

You need to provide more info about the particular fare rules wrt this ticket.

You may be able to cancel and have credit for the fare minus a cancellation fee, but it depends on your fare rules.

And just to be clear, are you skipping the flight TO your destination, or the flight BACK? If you skip the first flight, the flight back will be cancelled without credit.

sand372

It's the flight back, I already took the first flight.
I know there is a 180$ change fee I was already told that when I talked to AA.
I don't think I can cancel and get a refund as it's a discount business fare.
The issue here is if I need to choose a date on the spot or is there an option for AA to put the flight as a credit/on hold until I choose another date...

Exec_Plat

This sounds like a total mess....

Were you using a travel agent or just muddling your way through self booking, AA.com and a telephone agent?!?!

You COULD have used the value of the return I fare twoards the new ticket...why did you buy a new ticket?!?!?

You run the risk of losing the whole return I fare if you do this wrong..... dates, cities, etc would help.

Doc Savage

Here is a thread about this:
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/ameri...es-merged.html

Basically, you need to cancel the flight. The residual value of the ticket is associated with the ticket number, not the PNR. You have one year to book another flight using that residual value but will be charged a cancellation fee at that time. The cancellation fee is usually $150, but can be up to $500 for some tickets.

And I agree with Exec_Plat that the AAgent should have told you to change the ticket, pay a change fee, and use the residual value to apply to the second ticket you bought.

MSPeconomist

It sounds like there's no I inventory on the desired new return date. Could it be that the OP's outbound I cannot be combined into a RT fare with the lowest avilable fare class on the new return date, so that changing the date requires buying up to a much higher fare class. In that case, it's conceivable (but not very likely) that buying a new one way ticket would be cheaper.

It's hard to guess/speculate without knowing the OP's exact fare code, dates/routes, and detailed fare rules.

sand372

the ticket was originally bought with aa.com
The trip was TLV-PHL-LAX-JFK-LHR-TLV.
I took the first part to LAX.
I need to get back for a family emergency and because it's the holiday's in Israel AA didn't have any place on any flight so I bought a turkish airlines one way ticket.
Now, I need to go back to LA in the next few weeks but I don't have an exact date yet, So I will get a one way ticket to LA (award booking) and want to use the return ticket from LA but I don't have the exact date yet.
I only talked to AA about changing the ticket and they didn't have seats on the date I needed, from what you guys wrote I can understand that I can pay a cancellation fee and when I have the return date to call AA to book the flights again(Of course they need to have seats, but my dates are flexible and can be moved a few days back and forth)

Doc Savage

Definitely check the price of a roundtrip versus a one way before you buy. The difference may not be very much, in which case you might be better off applying the credit to the roundtrip rather than spending a bunch of miles and then another bunch of money.

e.g., roundtrip might be $1500 and one way might be $1200 or more

sand372

I know regarding the prices of oneway vs round trip.
I will use a reward to get back to LAX and want to use the return flight, but I don't have a date yet, that's the question...

Dave Noble

If I understand it correctly

You have a ticket from A-B-A
You now plan to buy a new ticket for A-B and wish to use the original A-B-A ticket to just fly B-A

If so ,

You cannot just skip the outbound flight and then take the inbound flight

Once you miss the outbound flight, you will be a no-show and ( depending on fare rules ) may have worse penalty than if you change in advance

If you wish to change it to a one way inbound flight, if the fare rules allow it, an agent will charge any fee and fare difference

Being an international flight., even if it is able to be credited towards a oneway flight, you may have an issue that the credit cannot be used for travel starting from another country

Andriyko

The OP wrote that they flew the outbound and just want to use the return segments at a later date.

sand372, what you want to do is perfectly fine, however, if you want to change your flights to a new date you will need to come up with a specific date, otherwise you may cancel and use the residual value towards a new ticket. I would not advise cancelling though - if you cancel AA will recalculate your fare based on the journey that you took (which is one way from TLV to LAX), which could be much more than what you paid for the return and there will be no refund to speak of. I would suggest changing to a new date to get the most value from your ticket. I know you mentioned that you did not know the exact date, but you risk losing the remaining value of your ticket without changing it.

Dave Noble

Oh - I somehow missed the follow up post where he confirmed

What then matters is what the fare rules state - it may well be that the change needs to be made to a specific date and then if needing to change again will need to pay change fee again

If the fare rules state that it can be parked and just used later, then that will be allowed

The rules vary from route to route on what the fare rules are