LHR/MEL/Europe FF

No. No points back unless you cancel the whole ticket and rebook again in business class.

If there are no award seats available in business class then you'd miss out taking the flight at all. If there are business class award seats available it makes it easy to cancel and rebook.

With my friends their aircraft was changed from one with first class (77W) to one without (789). As the change was only a few days before departure, the flight was full. Their only options were to reissue into business class but no refund of the points difference or cancel and they and find something else.

Because they needed to be in USA for a wedding, they had no choice but to continue in the donwgraded cabin without any refund of points.

tr3k

The biggest issue with CA award bookings is that there is no way to see their status on the actual CA website.
Anything Checkmytrip (or other airlines) show is a "copy", similar to the booking Avianca itself has.

In theory, CA may have something completely different on their end. The only way to verify is to call. Their US number is reasonably reachable during the week.

LHR/MEL/Europe FF

True. But you likely need to call for seat allocation anyways, so at the same time confirm they have a ticket number against the booking.

From there in, monitor the flight occasionally to make sure there haven't been any changes (LM is not good at communicating these).

tr3k

Curiously, on a combined TG/CA reservation I was able to select seats for CA flights on the TG website (which appears to be checkmytrip/Amadeus? frontend anyway). Once selected, I called CA and they confirmed that the seats were, indeed, assigned as selected.

So, there may be some communication on the back end, but it's still not particularly reliable.

jfeng0039

I just checked my ticket and the aircraft changed from 77w to 789. I booked the afternoon first class flight, and I saw the same-day night flight have first class. Can I call LifeMiles and ask them to change my fight from afternoon to night time? Do I have to pay any extra fee?

LHR/MEL/Europe FF

Yes! You can, and no, there is no fee. However there must be award availability in F for the new flight (not just an F seat).

You will need to contact lifemiles for this, the general call centre won’t be able to help you. When navigating the phone menu you select 3 or something for lifemiles, then 1 for general program information (this actually takes you to an operator).

You may have some difficulty getting them to understand there was an aircraft change and you are now in business class. We had the same thing happen and it looks like air china automatically confirms you into biz class... so when LM looks at the booking they think everything is normal. The change of aircraft isn’t apparent in your booking at LM’s end (they can’t see you were in a 77w to start for example).

So you may need to be patient and explain there is an aircraft change, the new aircraft doesn’t have F. Then they will actually bend over backwards to help. If the alternative flight has F award availability no issues. If there’s none, they will look for other award routings.

I don’t know what happens if there is revenue F on another flight but no awards. In that case it might be better to go through air china, get them to move you to the F flight, and then got to LM for re ticketing.

jfeng0039

lifemiles sucks, they can't even speak English. They push me to air china, they can't help me change the flight.

jfeng0039

They understood that air china changed the flight and 787 don't have the first class anymore. But they won't help me change the flight or cancel the flight over the phone. They told me to contact air china or request an cancellation on-line. I think they will trying to charge me fee for the cancellation, one of the worst customer service airline.

LHR/MEL/Europe FF

We had the exact same issue with the downgrade. Are you 100% certain you were speaking to Lifemiles and NOT reservations?

Whenever we called reservations directed us to Air China (and of course air china won’t touch the booking because it is issued by LM).

LM has a limited window, I forget the exact hours but something like 8am? When you speak to them they are willing to help.

Can you confirm there is award space on the alternative flight in F?

also be aware that unless you cancel you existing ticket, and rebook (free of charge, but subject to award availability), you will NOT get a refund in the miles between F and J. The terms and conditions of LM awards don’t allow refunds for a class downgrade (unless you cancel and rebook).

It can be a frustrating process, but if there is F award space, stick in there.

jfeng0039

I called air china they push me back to LifeMiles the ticket issuer, they told me there's nothing they can do. Air china told me the flight and ticket were cancelled. LifeMiles told me the best they can do is cancel my flights and refund my points in 5-10 business day. Avianca and air china are the worst airlines problems ever

LHR/MEL/Europe FF

The flight itself shouldn’t be cancelled, just you will be in business class instead of first.

Can you confirm there is award availability in F on the other flight?

can you confirm you spoke to LM and not reservations?

jfeng0039

I called air china and they said my flight is cancelled(they confirmed the flight isn't downgrade to business class, it's cancelled, they want me to contact the ticket issuer to reissue the ticket). I have confirmed with 3 LM agents and all told me they can't change the reservation, i even spoke with their team supervise. There's still F award available on the same day.

jfeng0039

The 1st and 2nd agent told me that i have to request the cancellation on their website, they can't do the cancellation over the phone. After i spoke with air china, the 3rd LM agent help me cancel the flight over the phone. LM agents are very unprofessional

LHR/MEL/Europe FF

I'm sorry to hear your experience. The level of frustration matches ours when we had the same situation, but the actual Lifemiles staff were helpful. Seems you had bad luck here.

They should be able to rebook you on the flights with F availability if they cancel or change the booking.

jfeng0039

Thank you very much for helping. LM said that's air chinas fault and told me to contact air china's agent. LM agent said the only option is to cancel the flights, the good thing is i got my miles refunded within 12 hours. I just lost the $100 booking fee