I don't know whether to laugh or cry about this,

Because I had a meeting in London today, rather than my usual 18:15 FRA - LHR, 21:05 LHR MME. I spoke nicely to LH on Monday and they swapped my 'W' class for a 'W' class at 07:35 this morning, and charged me 35 GBP. Perfectly acceptable under the circumstances.

The meeting finished just after two, so I got myself out to LHR on the tube and at 15:40 about asked nicely if I could have a seat on the 16:20. Yes sir, seats are available but ah... as your journey started in Frankfurt you must change the whole of your fare, that will be 330 GBP please. Can this really be true??? you have to have the whole fare recalculated for the last leg?

Now obviously I'm no mug, so what about your tiniest one way fare? 102 GBP says the man. So I declined that as well.

Empty seats went to MME and right now I'm sat in the DC for 5 hours, drinking bmi beer and eating bmi food when they could have asked a reasonable sum off me for getting me home 5 hours earlier and another 5 hours to resell my seat.

Had a similar situation few weeks back... Got in off a transatlantic an hour early and i had booked a flight 4 hours later to BHD in case of delays... Asked nicely at bmi desk could i get a seat on the earlier flight which was leaving in 90 mins, and was told yes if i pay �325 (was on W fare). Obviously i declined but the girl at ticket desk was not a bit pleasant about it. Instead i sat in DC lounge for 4 hours while the earlier flight left half empty. I know its only following the rules, and you get what you pay for, but surely a little bit of flexibility (especially as im DC *G) wouldn't have killed them!

If they want to play by the fare rules it's only fair... However they miss out on an incredible amount of good-will by not accomodating these changes when the plane is half-full, and as well it doesn't cost them a penny to do that. Staff may be under specific orders not to be flexible anymore hoping that business passengers will buy flexible tickets ??? If that is the case it is probably another false economy saving as those passengers may be likely to fly another airline which is a bit more flexible...

I had a similar situation at MAN once (a year ago now). BMI desk in T1 declined but after I went and changed into a suit, asked another bmi staff member who then phoned the desk, they rebooked me. That was a web only cheapo fare too!
Oh, was rebooked into G, and was retroactively claiming the miles, but they did give them to me!

It DOES cost BMI a pretty penny to adopt a policy where fare restrictions are not enforced. Who would buy the higher-priced flexible tickets when they know BMI is willing to not enforce the rules on the cheap fares? Answer is very few. You have got to look at the big picture.

Yes and no.

What costs BD more?: a) bending the rules once in a while so someone can fly home on an earlier flight which isn't sold out (and they can sell the original seat up until departure), or b) having the PAX sit in the lounge for four hours and while they do that, they take up space, consume a bunch of alcohol and eat all the food? Oh, and the pax is disgruntled that as a frequent customer, the airline won't be nice to them once in a while... Surely, option b can also potentially cost BD a pretty penny!

Sure, you get what you pay for, but bending of the rules once in a while when in a crunch can be well worth it for the company!

The devil is in the details. "Once in a while" is an impossible policy for a corporation with hundreds of front line agents. Give agents the power to waiver the rules, and they will waive them. If the restrictions on cheaper fares are not enforced, people will always buy the cheaper fare. The extra cost of a few pints in the lounge is insignificant compared to the lost revenues from passengers buying cheaper fares when the would otherwise buy more expensive fares.

Colin is right. We've had the same discussion over at the BA board many times. The bottom line is that the whole point of an inflexible fare is that it's inflexible. If the rules were bent, over time, people would learn about it and the airline would no longer sell flexible tickets, and the revenue loss would be tremendous. There is really no middle road option here for an airline, i.e. let's bend the rules just this once because it's a good idea! That's something a 20-100 person company can do, not companies the size of BMI or BA.

I wholly agree with Colin and economyman. It's simply the structure of European airlines' fares, and it has proved to be a fairly profitable way to run the business.

However, I have found bmi staff to be really kind and forgiving. One occasion comes particularly to mind -- this was before I had any status with BD.

Rushing to the airport on Sunday evening for the penultimate EDI shuttle of the day, I was caught in horrible traffic on the M25. I arrived with 15 minutes to spare, but since I was heading back to university, I had bags to check and there was no hope. I went to the ticket desk to see if (and how much) a seat was available on the last flight. Taking pity on me, he put me on standby, free of charge -- I got the last seat on the plane.

Oddly enough, that great service, along with a few other instances, gained bmi revenue by converting me to using them for all my domestic travel (and until now I've been really happy with them).

EDIT: Reflecting on it, there probably is something to be said for the much smaller corporate size of BD compared to BA. I can imagine that the staff at the T1 ticket office are (were?) more empowered to permit 'waivers and favours' than someone at one of BA's myriad desks.

Have often found NZ to be flexible on Non Flexible fares,

Work takes me to Christchurch often, have found on many occasions getting to Christchurch airport very early to catch the Shuttle to Auckland, for the LAX flight, they have let me catch a flight 4 hours early so I can have a few hours in Auckland on the way out. Never would push or demand for it, but just asked "Would you like me to catch an earlier flight if there is a seat to free up space on the later shuttle", and without fail they offered to change me.

Richard

Checking in for a flight MAN-LHR not so long ago I was on one of those 'free plus taxes' offers out of the Daily Mail. I was four hours early and without even asking, the BMI check-in agent asked me if I wanted to travel down on the earlier flight. I was in need of some retail therapy at Dixons hence declined. I guess it just depends on the individual. Just like Harry Potter, these people have magical powers - whether or not they choose to use them...

I have had loads of flexibility on cheapo inflexible tickets over the years with airlines as diverse as BA, SAS, Czech Air, Air China and many dodgy Latin American airlines who's names I can no longer remember. Generally the airlines allow some flexibility in the system and its a case of simply finding the right person.

Recently on one airline I turned up a day late by accident on a VERY cheap ticket and they still flew me!! (they were very angry though!)

Of course, up until now, there's been no such thing as a BD fully-inflexible fare. All fares are changeable for �30 plus fare difference (which has worked out well for me on several occasions).

It's not that the OP wasn't prepared to pay a change fee, but to try to apply an additional change fee to an already flown segment, where a point-to-point one-way would be cheaper... Now, that's just silly.

The way round this, of course, is to travel from CDG, where they just put you on any old flight, and upgrade your fare class for fun, too

Wasn't there that that DOWBMI (restricted) fare to Europe which allowed changes for no fee before?

Thanks Stut, that's entirely the case. I would have had no problem in being asked for the difference between fares for example, which would have been around 50 GBP.

For everyone in this forum who has such faith in fully flexible tickets, I have on 2 occasions (Air France and United) had fully changeable 'Y' tickets and been told that, tough luck there's no seats available on the flight you want to change to.