Need to cancel/change fare. Rock + hard place
 

Was due to be flying tomorrow 24th July with my girlfriend:
Newark (EWR) -> Paris ORY via OpenSkies BA8004 in Economy (selling class O)

Return: 2nd August
Paris ORY -> LHR on BA0331 in Club Europe (selling class J)
LHR -> EWR on BA0185 in Club World (selling class I)


I've a pending job change and as a Brit here, have had to refile with USCIS to transfer my visa to the new company.
There's been a delay at USCIS, with cases taking 5 weeks instead of the usual 2 for my visa type.

Anyway long story short, I can't travel anymore, as if I do, I won't be able to return to the US until the visa transfer is complete, and I've visited an embassy to get the new visa stamped into my passport.


The ticket is changeable, with a fee. The website says $275 per person to change, but won't let me change it…
On the phone they tell me its $500 per person to change and that it must be a glitch with the website.

http://badger.ing.me.uk/cost_to_change.png


When I explored the option of delaying the flight until November, they then told me ontop of the $500 change fee they claim is due, there's a further $600 per person due to a difference in fair price.

So that's $1100 per person to change.


I then explored options of canceling, and am told that whilst there were taxes of $869 per person on my tickets, BA will only refund $194 per person of those.


So I'm feeling a bit miffed.

It takes 24-48 hours to get any response from them on options for changing the flight, as it needs to go off to their "fares team".

What are my options?
- The e-ticket doesn't mention change fees, manage my booking shows $275 per person, so how can BA claim its $500 per person?
- In past experience (admittedly ex-UK tickets not ex-USA) I've had most of the tax refunded when canceling , not just a pittance. Is this a change in policy? Are BA allowed to do this, seeing as they surely won't be charged if I don't fly?

If I do a dummy booking I also see a $275 change fee.

If you don't like the outcome first time, call again. Try and find dates where they have your original fare bucket available.

Whatever you do, don't cancel the ticket. Other than a refund of some of the taxes, you lose the rest of the ticket value and cannot reuse it later.

There is not $869 of taxes. This is a poorly trained call centre staff fraudulently claiming the BA "carrier surcharge" is a tax. It is not, it's paid to BA. $194 sounds about right for the government taxes.

You could avoid the "fare increase" by shopping around for dates where the same fare class is available. Depending on the season you booked and whether you got a sale fare it would be possible that the same price isn't available -- however that seems unlikely. If it was a sale fare it usually wouldn't be changeable at all and November is hardly peak season. (And you're booking plenty in advance of your new dates).

You could also ask if you can cancel the reservation and pay the change fee only when you're sure what your new dates are and reuse the ticket. I'm not sure if BA allows that but other airlines do.

I would stick to your guns about the $275. It's their web site so it's not your problem if it's a glitch. You should say you relied on the information their web site provided and expect them to stand by their price quote. If they don't you might consider going ahead with the purchase and then filing for a refund with customer relations or even sending the screenshot to your credit card and contesting the charge.

Between all your eticket and reservation confirmations do you see the fare code anywhere? That'll be some gibberish like TKP5UK Perhaps someone here can look up the actual fare terms for your fare and you can find out what the correct change fee is. They'll need the origin and destination and perhaps also the dates.

You might also mention that this is all due to the visa delay. There *are* clauses in nearly all fares allowing flexibility in case a visa is denied. I think that's intended to apply to people who are refused a visa to their intended destination but there's a slim chance they might consider treating it under that clause.

I would definitely call again. The agent may simply have been wrong about the $500 to change.

One thing though, you said that there were $800+ in taxes on the ticket. Are you sure about that? BA like to group part of the fare into the 'taxes+carrier-imposed surcharge' part. Check whether part of the $800+ you mention are 'fuel surcharge (YQ)' or similar. These are not taxes: it's part of the fare that BA have split off and therefore won't be refunding to you on a non-refundable fare.

Thanks all.

Did some playing around on the website, and figured out the cause of the flight fare difference. When getting the flights changed, I'd asked to extend the trip from 9 days to 12 days, and that changed the rules.

Seems there's a switch on the rules >10 days, so that has solved the fare difference problem.

Spoke to a really helpful lady, who is going to investigate with regard to the change fee. She asked me to email in the screenshot from MMB showing it as $275 per person, which I've done, and will call me back once it is resolved.

Fingers crossed it will all work out :)

If she does a dummy booking on ba.com she will also see the $275 change fee. If it is a 'glitch' then it is rather a persistent one. :)

Good luck !

oh happy days.

Just got an SMS that BA8004 is cancelled tomorrow, so been offered a full refund for the trip.

Thats gives a happy conclusion to this I think! - for me at least.

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 8_3 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/600.1.4 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/8.0 Mobile/12F70 Safari/600.1.4)

Awesome result!

Oh most definitely... Does it qualify for EU261 compensation as well or is that just being greedy.

Good result. Given the recent cancelations and substitutions I was secretly crossing my fingers for you. :)

Don't necessarily take the refund though - you can also ask for a free date change instead. Which is the better option depends on:

1) whether you know what alternative date you want to travel on and
2) whether the price of a new ticket is more/less than your booked ticket