tb1212

I need to cancel a late December flight and book an initial reservation to fly or "throw away" a ticket in my name by the middle of February.

With the residual value, approximately $1750..after paying the $150 plus probably a 50-60 LAX-SFO throw away, I plan to book a multi-city trip..CPH to TYS in May 2010 and then EWR to LHR in September 2010 for my husband and myself. Right now, without being able to put the real September dates in, but using a June date for the EWR-LHR flights, I can come pretty close to the 1750....I would be much happier if I could have cashed in on the 2700 but I'm grateful for what I got. This will be air fares to cover 2 Transatlantic cruises.

When I first contacted AA regarding my plan, I was told that I could not do what I planned because my cancelled ticket was a domestic RT. I then explained that I would be initially flying "domestically" and then would be booking the multi-city fares using a voucher. That was OK.....

The AA rep brought up another issue that I was not aware of. She told me that since we travel on a US passport, there may be a problem with a trip that originates in Europe and ends in Europe....that even when we initially check in in Copenhagen, we will need to provide documentation as to how we plan to reenter the US after our return to LHR in September. We did this same thing in 2007. We flew BCN-TYS and then TYS-ATH but that was on Delta. We were not questioned at all.

Does this make sense to anyone??? Any idea of who I should try to contact regarding this??

pinniped

It was a UA station - MCI.

I posted somewhere in the previous pages about the specific sequence of errors. It wasn't really the fault of the MCI staff - but they needed help from the UA help desk. The help desk put them on hold for 15-20 minutes. I was there at the counter for about an hour total, so they waived the fee. It probably helped that I'm 1K and I'm always nice to the MCI agents.

In an ideal world, I would have been able to do everything online, pay the $150, and gladly have those two hours of my life back. But no, that's not how United works. They like their late 20th century processes.

Xyzzy

The airline rep is blowing smoke. They will not care about your future travel plans at all when you check in at CPH. You could be asked that question by the immigration agent upon your return to Europe, though. In that case it would be good to have proof of onward/return travel either out of Europe or back to the USA.

tb1212

Thanks...that's what I thought also. On my flight back to LHR, I will have my cruise documentation showing return to the US.

Happy

You got an inexperienced agent.

We flew on AA Award tickets last year, for 2 Transatlantic cruises as well.

Our itinerary was BCN-ZRH-JFK-MIA (we stopped over at ZRH for a week in Switzerland) in May. Then in October we flew the 2nd half of the ticket, MIA-YYZ (stopover)-LHR-BCN. YYZ-LHR-BCN was on BA. Nobody at BA counter ever asked for any "re-enter" US documents.

The initial agent I got was all confused as she kept confusing the originating part as being from U.S. I had to hang up and call back to accomplish my booking.

OTOH, your itinerary is not a multi-city, but an Open Jaw itinerary if this is what you mean:

CPH-XXX-TYS-EWR-LHR, with TYS being your destination, CPH and LHR being the Open Jaw. Does AA fly EWR-LHR? I thought they fly JFK-LHR?

Happy

I know. I have a UA ticket as well, because I need to augment my UA account. Unfortunately I do not realize UA mainline completely pulls out of South Florida, leaving only UAX station at MIA.

I can envision my wasting 3 hours and expensive parking fee at MIA, yet might still not accomplish anything. Scary...

discountsae

So I have been following this forum for several months. I am fortunate because I am still able to redeem my ThankYou Points on the Fixed Flight option until the end of August 2009. I signed up for the 40,000 ThankYou Point promotion when I opened up my Citi checking account so they are allowing me to still use the Fixed Flight option for a few more weeks.

Right now I have 120,000 ThankYou points, and should have 140,000 total when my statement closes next week. I am looking for some wisdom and advice to make sure I don't screw up when redeeming my points at the end of next week.

So I am thinking about redeeming all of my points (140,000) for one single flight to Hawaii in Business class aboard Northwest. I am a bit concerned about how the Northwest/Delta merger will affect my future voucher.

Flight: Muskegon -- Kahului (Departing May 28, 2010, Returning June 1, 2010)
$4,193.74 Taxes and Fees $246.37 = Total $4,440.11

My flight consists of the following segements.
MKG-DTW (on NWA)
DTW-LAX (on NWA)
LAX-OGG (on United)
OGG-SFO (on United)
SFO-JFK (on United)
JFK-DTW (on Delta)
DTW-MKG (on NWA)

With United in the mix, how will this affect my voucher when I cancel my itinerary?

If anyone has a better suggestion for redemtion (better itinerary or strategy), please let me know.

One last question, because this is a domestic ticket, will I be restricted to using my voucher for domestic flights? I want to be able to do some international travel (mainly to New Zealand, Australia, and India).

I appreciate all of you who have contributed so much to this discussion!

-DiscountSAE

Happy

You better check and double check NW restrictions on using cancelled ticket credit before you redeem a NW ticket.

Nobody here redeems NW ticket because NW requires the cancelled ticket value to be used ALL AT ONCE, on a single replacement ticket. If this is not an issue, then go as you plan.

bostonbali

Happy - Do you know whether DL will waive the $150 outside agency fee in the case of a schedule change?

Happy

I know DL now charge outside agency fee, but do not know it is so high at $150? Do you mean ticket change fee instead?

If it is ticket change fee, you immediately rebook something, I would imagine DL will waive it due to schedule change. I am not DL flyer so really making a guess here.

However, if you merely want to cancel, you may risk the infamous "refund to original form of payment" option.

My CO ticket has a big schedule change, but I dont have anything to rebook, yet have to cancel before departure date. CO would not put a note in to waive the fee, but is more than willing to do full refund to the original form of payment. Of course I bit the bullet and just cancelled it.

A friend had to cancel a fly+hotel vacation package booked thru Expedia last X'mas due to his wife got really sick 2 days before departure. The fly was on CO. Expedia cancelled everything on his behalf, told him his CO credit would stay with CO but the change fee was waved due to sickness with doctor's note. Sure enough, when he was ready to rebook, he called CO, and pleasantly found out not only the $150 change fee was waived, CO also waived the $25 outside agency fee.

So, another possible way to get fee waived, would be an unfortunate / fortunate, co-incidence of illness of the passenger, depends on what kind of situation you are in!

bostonbali

I can report that while the $50 outside agency fee was not waived, the $150 change fee was, in fact, waived because of the schedule change.

I booked a refundable/changeable ticket for 331 days down the road to trigger a DL 006 e-ticket number which I could then use to make bookings for other family members.

At some point, I'll call and get the fully refundable/changeable ticket changed to a flight I plan to actually take.

Xyzzy

Did you get the credit, or did Citi end up with it?

Happy

The credit sits at CO, as I have opted to simply cancel w/o fee waived.

Hind sight I probably should book a refundable/changeable ticket as far out as possible with change fee waived. It did not dawn me at the time, because I really never think about how to dodge the $200 change fee (international tkt), as I had already factored it in.

Xyzzy

Lucky for you that it didn't go back to Citi...

discountsae

Thanks for the warning. I don't want to use my voucher all at once. How is the Delta merger going to affect NWA vouchers?

What is the best airline to utilize this deal of having TY points turned into a voucher? Any thoughts on Delta or United. Also does anyone know of an itinerary to Hawaii that would be close to $4200 (140,000)?

Thanks,

-DiscountSAE