dnw

Can someone please help me confirm if my understanding of the following situation is correct.

Earlier today I upgraded the return leg of a Euro Traveller return revenue ticket to Club Europe using Avios. I then changed my mind (long story) and called to remove the upgrade.

I am being told by the agent, after twice checking with her supervisor, that I can have my Avios back but as the "underlying fare" is no longer available (i.e. the original booking class) they will have to reissue the ticket and charge me the difference between what I paid and the current Euro Traveller ticket price.

This is rubbish isn't it? I've directed them to the T&Cs, even read them out over the phone, but they insist.

Or am I wrong?

thanks.

corporate-wage-slave

It doesn't sound right to me, it seems the agent is trying to cancel the original booking and then create a new one, leading to the fare difference.

What should happen is you recover the UuA and get back to where you were. So long as you are trying to get to exactly the status quo ante, with no change to flights (etc) then you lose up to Ł35 from the additional cash component in redeposit fees - since I don't think the cooling off period would appear here - and that's it. Having said that, I am not in the habit of cancelling UuAs like this (in fact I can't ever recall doing it at all) but it would be good if one of the staffers could give their view.

Andriyko

It does sound right to me. It has always been my understanding (on the advice of call centre agents) that the original booking class needs to exist in order to cancel the Avios upgrade. If the original booking class does not exist then they need to upfare. In my case it was an upgrade from WTP (E class) to CW, and as E was no longer available I could not downgrade without paying the difference between E and W. The T&Cs say 'subject to availability," but it is not quite clear whether any seat needs to exist or a seat in the original booking class (knowing how airlines operate I believe it's the latter).

dnw

Andriyko

I guess this is where confusion is. Your booking class is no longer N, it is U. Your underlying fare is N*something. What needs to happen is for the flight you want to downgrade on has to have N class available when you decide to downgrade. If there is no N class BA will ask you to buy up to the next fare. In a way it is not that different from commercial booking - no matter what one's booking class or underlying fare is, the airline will still look at what's available on the day one requests the change in most cases.

orbitmic

Unfortunately, my understanding is the same as Andryiko's. Basically, when your ticket moves to U, you do not obviously also keep space in (say) N, H, or T so your underlying seat is released and revenue inventory continues its complex little life without you. If you then decide to change your mind about the upgrade, if N, H, or T or whatever you were booked in originally is not available, then the system cannot reintegrate you in that. RM could accept to recreate availability for you in the original fare but they don't have to. The alternative is that you pay up to the newly lowest available fare in your original travel cabin.

I know it may seem like a perverse situation at first but if you want to understand the logic, think of the extreme case: you did book your original flight in N, then decided to upgrade to U. So far so good. Now you change your mind, but in fact, by that time, economy is now fully sold. What could the airline do - obviously, they can't just reintegrate you in a cabin which is full so they have to say no. Well, the system is pretty much the same with individual buckets. you are asking to be back in a bucket which has no free seats any more, so in practice, they cannot give you one though this time, they can actually offer you a seat in M, H, B, Y or whatever instead but at a cost.

dnw