JumboD

I have a trip to NYC coming up that I decided to extend by a day. I called in, grudgingly parted with several hundred dollars, and ended up with LAX-SFO-JFK a day earlier (why you can't just re-price the outbound and have to do the whole thing still ticks me off, but I digress...).

The next afternoon, I happen to check expertflyer.com and find a C seat (reason for routing via SFO) on a direct flight, same price. I call in and ask if I'm still allowed to change a ticket within 24hrs of booking and am told yes. They go to make the change, but return to tell me that it has to be 24hrs of the original booking, not 24hrs of a rebooking (despite having the ticket completely re-priced). I could not find a definitive answer on AA.com, so I called again, and this time they made the change no fee, no problem.

My question is which agent was correct? Did I get lucky and get something they should have charged for for free, or did the first agent just not know what they were doing? And, regardless of which is correct, would whichever one is a mistake be the agents mistake, or the rate desk's mistake?

mkmintman

I'm not really sure what the rules are by airline for the 24 hour booking rule. In this situation you can always call your credit card company up within 24 hours and have them block the charge if the airline refuses to work with you.

Madison Guy

Block which charge? You can contest - not block, AFAIK. But, what was unfair? The charge via SFO that the OP actually authorized? Or are you referring to if the OP had accepted a second change fee for the change bach to direct routing within 24 hours? If that is that case, right or wrong, the OP would still have, in theory, said yes (and therefore still a legit charge) - but that was not the case - he called back and had another agent do it for free - right?

I guess I just have a problem with a cc dispute unless all efforts with the merchant have failed - AND the charge was not coorect in the first place - which would NOT be the case as described here, IMO.

JumboD

I agree with you completely. An agreed-upon charge is valid, unless the "agreement" was made under some kind of duress, IMO. What would be disputable, in my mind, is if AA realized the second agent was incorrect, and just charged my card another change fee without my permission. That, I would dispute.

Gandhi90s

AFAIK there is no official policy allowing fee-free changes within 24 hours, although many have reported being accommodated.

sbm12

I know of no carrier that allows the 24-hour rule on changes to itineraries. I am pretty sure that for each change after the initial booking 24 hour window you get hit with the fee. And the ruling on the 24 hour window varies based on the airline and how they observe that policy.

zman

DL allows you for DL.COM tickets to cancel with 100% refund within 24 hrs.

LAXjoe

same for united.com

brp

And LAN. But not AA.

But the part about disputing a valid charge just because the merchant doesn't make the change you want is garbage.

Cheers.

formeraa

On AA.com, you can HOLD most reservations for 24 hours with a guarantee on the fare.

JumboD

Nope. An aa.com hold, last I checked, only guaranteed the inventory, not the exact fare. You can hold a Q seat, for example, but you will pay whatever the going rate is for Q when you purchase. The only way to guarantee a fare hold is to do so over the phone, from my recollection.

FWAAA

I disagree.

Here's what aa.com said about the hold I just placed on a Q fare:

In a dozen years of buying tickets on aa.com and its predecessor, I've never had AA deny the held fare if purchased prior to the stated deadline (24 hours).

Ajohn

Nope.

(The only exception is if you tick over a 3-day, 7-day, whatever advance purchase requirement.)

PanAmFT

In that case, even though the message will say you can hold it for 24 hours, the reservations summary will actually show that it expires that same day at 11:59 PM. It pays to read the email & check "my reservations" as a precaution after you've put a ticket on hold.

brp

Even in this case (with the hold indicating the shorter period of time, and the advance purchase rules saying the same) many folks here have reported having the web services folks honor the original price for the 24 hours...even though they don't have to.

Cheers.