IAH2MEL

Team-

Has anyone had a situation where they were downgraded from F to J and thus reimbursed the difference in miles to their LM account? If so, what steps did you take to get them back?

As many of you may already know, OZ is no longer flying first after Sept. 1. I am scheduled to fly OZ F in late September (used LM to book) and wanted to know if I should reach out to LM in order to get a few miles back.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

LHR/MEL/Europe FF

Two weeks ago my friends had an aircraft change with Air China PEK-EWR... permanent change from a 777 with F to a 789 with the highest cabin of J.

While you must call to get this sorted out (ticket reissued), there was no refund offered, or available (under the terms and conditions of Lifemiles). Even when pressed the answer was 'no' - you cannot change the class of ticket once issued.

What was available was to cancel free of charge, and wait to see if the seats went back into award inventory. But that wasn't an option in our case because the flight was just a few days away.

For ease of reticketing, call the Avianca number and select 'lifemiles' (option 3), then option 1 (program information or something like that). That brings you through to an agent who can help.

Reservations CANNOT and will not help. They look at the ticket and say 'this is for travel on a partner airline, you must contact the partner airline'. Which of course is incorrect.

We tried half a dozen agents across two days - all said the same thing. The only people that could help were Lifemiles, and they only work certian hours (which is why we got through to general reservations out of hours, and they can't help).

IAH2MEL

thank you - I will take your advice!

123dd

Can you share some experience after you have sorted out your booking?

I am in the same boat, but I really don't care what they call it or the cavier, as long as they give us the F seat. My booking has changed from O class to I class. What will happen if I just don't do anything?

LHR/MEL/Europe FF

When UA did this they mapped across my O class to I class, and accepted travel on the same ticket (still as an F award, just accommodated in J).

With the Air China example recently, the airline tried to ‘fix’ it on their own by creating a whole new booking (and putting the LM ticket in some sort of limbo).

if you have a return booking and the airline tries to fix it, you run the risk of ‘no showing’ on the LM ticket, and the return being cancelled.

if on a one way, and the airline messes it up, both tickets could get cancelled if payment appears to be missing on the new ticket, and the old ticket is in the wrong class.

Best to call LM, during LM hours. They will sort it. Can take 20 minutes. With air china they had no reason in the booking for the downgrade, so be prepared to offer up the removal of first class as the reason for your call.

IAH2MEL

Ok - I was honestly going to take the apathetic approach and just accept the downgrade so long as I still get the F seat. I need to be in NYC on that day and was happy with the 72K redemption.

I just tried accepting the scheduled changes, but the OZ site says "an error has occurred".

Adding on to 123dd: My question is - is doing nothing and accepting the changes still mean I have a seat on this flight?

IAH2MEL

Quick update - called OZ to try and accept the changes since an error was occurring online. My worst case occurred - operator mentioned I need to call LM to sort it out.

Calling LM so stay tuned.

IAH2MEL

no wait time for LM - offered two options: full refund or submit case online to remain on the flight. I, maybe foolishly, chose the latter.

I feel as though I am going to search for flights, and if I find a good one, I will book it and call up for the full refund.

Any thoughts or advice (if I am missing something) would be appreciated.

LHR/MEL/Europe FF

It's probably likely they would still carry you, but an F seat is unlikely. They'll have given that to one of the 'biz+' fare payers, or if none of those, one of their own elites.

I would still want to get this sorted (retircketed0 before departure just in case the lfight is full and you get bumped.

They are correct, OZ can't reissue the ticket for you - only LM can do that.

LM will come through for you and reticket you in the biz cabin on the current flight.

Nothing else you can do really, except if you find a better offer, take it. When we had the dwongrade with Air China the LM agent spent a good 15 mins looking for any alternatives, via several US hibs, but unfortunately there was nothing.

123dd

How about seat selection, once re-ticketed under I, would you still access to row 1-3?

LHR/MEL/Europe FF

It would be unlikely as the ticket will be in 'I' class and the old F seats will likely be in a different class.

jaffy

I'm booked on an OZ operated flight in October from a lifemiles redemption for first class. I had to call OZ directly to "confirm" the changes where two different phone reps mentioned that I 1) would keep the FC seats that I already selected and 2) would need to contact lifemiles to get the mileage credit back to my account. Called lifemiles where one phone rep stated the only options I had were to do nothing and leave it as is or cancel the tickets entirely and hope award space opened up (none was available for my selected travel date). I also sent an email to lifemiles support where I got back a boilerplate "we have routed your e-mail to the department who handles this" etc. etc.

Expert flyer still shows my original FC seats as "occupied" but hopefully they won't change me *fingers crossed*.

IAH2MEL

Update: I had a slightly different experience than @jaffy.

After submitting the case online through the Avianca website (not email), Avianca got back to me two days later to confirm that I was on the same reservation number, same flight, same seat, but re-ticketed as I. Just to be safe, I called and confirmed with LM that the ticket was all set. Further confirmed by checking on Asiana's website. I am still in seat 2E.

Also cancelled my insurance flight (ICN-PEK-JFK). IMO: it was worth the cancellation fee for peace of mind.

After calling LM a record number of times over the last year, there have been two helpful operators: one female (can't for the life of me remember) and Carlos.

wtcmor

IAHMEL No refund of points?

IAH2MEL

Yes, on my insurance flight that I cancelled.

I used 72k for ICN-JFK during the 30% off certain routes, so in theory I would owe LM 3k for the I reissue (based on current award rates).