jimcbob

Hi all,

I've got a flight out to Dubai on Wednesday in First (A) which I purchased during the sale in January. I need to bring the return forward. Until a couple of weeks ago, I could change the return to pretty much any date for just the change fee (£300) whereas now I'm getting quoted nearly £2000 for any change even though seats in A remain available. I suspect this is because I've passed some sort of AP requirement?

I'd be really grateful if anybody knows the following:

1. With the demise of classic CheckMyTrip, is there any way of finding out the fare basis so I can check the fare rules?

2. Do these sale fares usually provide that changes to the return flight are priced at historic prices if changed after departure? If so, would I be best waiting until I've flown the outbound to make the change, assuming availability remains good? Or will I run into problems with the AP requirement anyway: I'll be returning about a week after departure.

Thanks, J.

flatlander

Most fares have changes repriced at current prices (for the lowest applicable a fare in that fare bucket at the time of the change) before the first segment in the itinerary is flown and at historic prices (prevailing at ticket issue time) after the first segment is flown. Availability in fare buckets is needed at all times. Therefore if the only fare available now is a much higher one, due to (lack of) advance purchase requirements, the total cost of a change can be high.

So if you're confident there will still be availability in your required fare buckets after departure of the first flight, you can wait until then and enjoy historic pricing (therefore usually change fee only).

Krisz

LTN Phobia

Firstly you need to see if an A class seat is available on your new return date. If not, that is likely to be part of the problem.

Secondly, you might like to wait till you have flown the outbound to change the return so that it can be repriced at the historical fare level.

Globaliser

Most BA fares provide that if you are changing before the first flight and you are not changing the first fare component (= outbound half of most tickets), then either current fares or historical fares can be used, whichever are lower. This appears to be the OP's situation, as only the inbound half is to be changed.

Further, advance purchase requirements may then be calculated from original ticket issue date to date of departure of first flight - in other words, the OP's situation may mean that AP problems aren't involved.

Given what the OP describes, including the continuing availability of A class, my first suspicion would be that the original fare was a DIF and is no longer available because (for example) it depended on there being availability in both A and I classes, and I class is now zero so a higher fare needs to be used.

jimcbob

Thank you! This does seem to be the case: the fare basis apparently ends "DIFP". It is slightly annoying to buy a ticket in A without being told that the price of changes will depend on business class availability, but there we go...

(Although how these DIF fares work is a bit of a mystery to me. There is still I-class availability for the return I want, so I suspect it has something to do with the AP requirements of the underlying I class fare.)

flatlander

From what you say, Globaliser is right.

DIF fares also have AP requirements and change conditions. They're separate fares from any I fare with their own conditions.

If it's (say) an A and I DIF fare then you need to have availability in A, and in I, and meet the advance purchase and other sale conditions.

If you can post the actual fare basis and when you purchased it as well as your booked travel dates, we might be able work out more.

Globaliser

There isn't an underlying I class fare; I think that it's unhelpful to think of these as instant upgrade or automatic AUP fares. Fundamentally, it's simply an A class fare that books into A class, but is only valid if there is availability in both A class and (for example) I class. The rules are the rules of the A class fare.

It is, however, true that in the BA implementation of DIFs, it's very hard to work out which is the other booking classes in which availability is required - so I have mentioned I class only as a purely hypothetical possibility. I occasionally have to spend some time working out which T class fares in the published fare ladder require what, so that I can understand what it is that I am buying (and and so that I can save the correct fare rules at the time of purchase, in case I need to refer to them later).

Having said that, I can't see any published A class DIFs, whether for sale now or for sale on 1 January 2019 (which should have been when the sale was in progress), so I wonder whether this was an unpublished fare (of which ba.com now sells quite a few).

jimcbob

Thanks again. The agent said that the rules and price are based in part on an I class fare, but I may have misunderstood the point.

Assuming it is looking for availability in I class, the explanation might be that there is no outbound availability in I. Would that make a difference? If so, how would it work if I change the date after I fly the outbound - because then it presumably couldn't check the availability in I for the outbound since it would be a flight in the past? In other words - is there some possibility that I will be in a better position after I fly the outbound, assuming there is still availability in the relevant buckets for the return I want?

Globaliser

If these work in the same way as the T class DIFs that I have seen, then no.

For example, here are the T class fares for a trip to HKG in a couple of months' time. I've split them into pairs for visibility. These are all in the same season (L) because they're for the same travel dates. Each pair of fares has one midweek (X) and weekend (W) version. The first pair requires T and O, the second pair T and Q, and so on through N, S and V. Assuming that there's T class, the fare for any flight that's got O class availability will be the relevant one from the first pair, and the relevant flight that's got Q class but no O class will be from the second pair.

So if you go out on a Friday night on a flight with T and N (but neither O nor Q), then you'll be fared using (half of) £635.00 for the outbound; and if you come back on a Monday night on a flight that has T and O, then you'll be fared at (50% of) £545.00 for the inbound. Total base fare £590.00, plus TFC. The fact the outbound flight has no availability in O doesn't mean that the T/O class fare can't be used for the inbound half.

If the A class DIFs work in the same way, then you can see that it shouldn't matter. But if A class DIFs work differently, then it could.