hometoworld

I'm booked to return from HKG to LAX in Oct. I was told by my travel agent that I can avoid the $150 change fee + $25 (weekday to weekend fee) if I change the date after arriving in HKG. I want to change from 10/3 (Mon) to 10/15 (Sat) on CX884.

How much hassle will I encounter? I'm thinking of going to CX at the airport when I arrive (Sun 9/11) to change my return date. Can they change it on the spot or is it going to take days of red tape? I would be asking for a date change over 30 days away in October so I'm hoping that there would be seats available if I wait until I arrive into HKG. If I have to go through a lot of calling back & forth to CX or worse, call back to my travel agent in the US, spending $175 now may be worth it.

Thanks in advance for sharing any past experience or tips about this.

Chiangi

What is the booking class of your ticket and where was it issued?

If it's K and was issued in North America, the change fee, which I thought was 100USD, will apply only to the outbound up to HKG. After you fly the outbound, date/flight changes for the remainder of the sectors will be free of charge. A weekend surcharge may or may not be levied. It all depends on how alert the reservation agent is. It is collected at the airport, not at the time of rebooking.

Reservations may be changed by calling a local CX agent. But the best way is to call CX in North America. They know the fare rules of the ticket immediately.

You do not need to go to the airport.

WildRice

I think your TA was simply too lazy to do the change.. because as an e-ticket, even for a date change, you have to reissue the entire ticket. And as the outbound has not been flown yet, the $150 fee applies if you changed the outbound. The inbound carries no fee. But your agent doesn't want the hassle that 'just in case he's wrong' decided that it's easier for you to do that when you're in HK.

But having said that, it will be easier for you to do the change in HK. Whatever, the HK CX agents will still have to refer to the North American rules and conditions of you fare.

Good luck.

hometoworld

Thanks for the information. Yes, my ticket is K class and the TA mentioned that it would be no charge to change the return date after I got to HKG and additional $25 for a weekend date. I was debating whether I should pay the $150 surcharge to change the return date before I flew or take a risk that the flight may/may not be full if I wait to change the return date in HKG. Since I need to get back by a certain date and not knowing how full flights get for weekend mid-Oct, I am considering paying the $150. Thanks for the advices.

Guy Betsy

What is your departure date to HKG?
What is your current return date, and what is your preferred return date? I will check the dates for you.

Honestly if you can save the $150, save it for something else.

Is it an e-ticket or paper? If it's paper, I may have a solution for you..

hometoworld

My departure date to HKG is Sept 10.
My current return date to LAX is Oct 3.
My preferred return date is Oct 15.

Right now, my ticket is K class and it is an e-ticket.

Thanks.

fallinasleep

Is K one of the higher economy fare buckets? I'm a bit surprised that there is no date change fee. I've had that privilege on a CX ticket issued by a consolidator years back, but I don't recall seeing those on other carriers unless it is Y or B.

christep

CX doesn't have change fees on quite a lot of lower fares, but exactly which subclass varies by route. For example, I am currently in MNL on an M class HKG-MNL-HKG ticket (which is actually the cheapest published fare, being a Diamond). There is no fee for a change of date/time provided that you do it before the date you were originally due to depart, but there is a "no show" fee of HK$300.

In general the subclasses go YBHKLMV in that descending order. Tickets aren't readily available in all subclasses on all routes.

Guy Betsy

The order of subclasses mean differently for originating cities. K in USA, may be a higher subclass bracket than K originating in say, Europe.

M class may seem a higher fare bracket than K. And V class? One would think it's at the bottom of the hierarchy? Not if it's originating from some asian cities for their one year ticket. M class seems to be used for short validity tickets.

It really is difficcult to gauge which fare bracket is what. One needs to know where the ticket is originating from first.

hometoworld

Long update ...

Well, I decided to do the return date change and pay the extra surcharge in exchange for a sense of certainty. It's the first time dealing with this travel agent and let's just say I won' be using them again. First, they told me the change date fee is $150 + weekend fee $25 + agent fee $50. Then, they asked for $125 by credit card and $100 by cash. Then, they came back with an extra $50 fee because of increase in fuel surcharge. I called CX and found out as of 8/1, there is an increase fuel charge of 10.60 out of LAX per leg. That doesn't add up to $50 extra.

After adding it up, total should be $246.60. I agreed to pay an extra $125 by credit card and have the $100 in cash returned for a total of $250.

I originally had e-ticket but the agent re-issued as paper ticket.

Now, my credit card company tells me that the agent made 2 charges, $74.15 and $252 but the credit card company rejected the $252. It's suspicious that I signed 2 credit card receipts, each $125 and the amount charged against my credit card account is not the same amount. Right now, only the $74.15 is a valid charge against my credit card account.

Anyway, I tried to decipher the fee codes on the paper ticket to figure out where the $74.15 came from. There is an increase of $21.60 (fuel surcharge as expected) and $28.50 (weekend fare as expected) and remainder of $24.45 (possibly paper ticket fee?). I can't explain why there is no change date charge of $150 as I was told. Could it be there was never suppose to be a change date fee as Christep mentioned earlier about no fee for changing date/time before departing?

Because of this suspcious credit card event with a charge rejected by my credit card company, should I worry about the validity of my paper ticket even though it has already been issued to me? I called CX and I'm in their system so far.

christep

Does the ticket number start with 160? If so then that's a CX ticket and you should be able to get them to do a certain amount of validation on it. If not then you have to wonder why...

Sounds like these are agents to be avoided - these days I tend just to deal direct with CX.

hometoworld

Yes, my paper ticket starts with 160 and under "issued by", it's printed "Cathay Pacific Airways". My confirmation number has always been in the CX system every time I called. I'll give it a week and then check with CX again.

The positive in this situation is that I bought from a walk-in travel office (not online) and can talk with them face-to-face until I get their attention. I was betting on them not wanting me to "make a scene" in front of their other customers. It would be 100 times worse if all I have is a phone number to call. I don't think the agent anticipated that I would call CX to validate each time they told me something. I'm glad I did, though.

Whenever I book online on a non-airline site, I always call the airline afterwards to make sure my booking is in their system. I do that for online hotel bookings, too. In the end, if the staff at the airline/hotel counter cannot pull up the booking at check-in, then it's very difficult to do much about it on the spot.

Chiangi

K (as well as H and B) class fares may be purchased directly from CX North America over the phone.

CX North America is clear about fare rules:

I don't know why the ticket has to be reissued (in lieu of being revalidated -- just date chage -- for the return/inbound).

Guy Betsy

And to add more fuel to the fire... there is NO surcharge to issue the e-ticket onto paper. CX does not impose that unlike US carriers like AA, UA.

Your TA sounds dodgy. I would question their ethics entirely. I agree with chiangi and wildrice. You should not be penalised for changing the inbound portion of the ticket as that carries no charge!

E-tickets must be reissued even with a date change. But the agent probably didn't know how to reissue an e-ticket and decided to print it out as a paper ticket.

Chiangi

About converting e-ticket to paper, I was told of the following:

I don't know if this is an old rule now but the OP didn't ask for paper, did s/he anyway? Or s/he did?