Dropping return flight
 

Going on vacation with my family next month. All of us bought P-fare FC tickets. I ended up getting a freelance gig starting the same day I’m supposed to go home with my family.

Trying to to figure out how to do this. The return portion of my vacation ticket is $750. Don’t want to just throw that away.

What are are my options?

First, Is $750 1/2 the ticket price? Or did you look at the fare itself to see the value? Because the outbound and return aren't necessarily the same price, and often the outbound is the more expensive 1/2 of the ticket if they are different.

Second, it will depend on if you have one way or round trip fares. If you have OW fares then you can turn that $750 into anything you want for the most part, as the fares are independent just on the same ticket. If you have RT fares, then it will depend a lot on what you're looking to do, as it may re-calculate the already flown portion into a OW fare eating some of your value if you no longer qualify for the fare. More details on your itinerary may be helpful.

Original itinerary was RIC-ATL-SFO. Driving to LA. Return is LAX-ATL-RIC

Family will stay on that. I need my trip to be: RIC-ATL-SFO (drive to LA). Then LAX-LAS-ATL-RIC

You ar not hosed. You are rerouting by cancelling some segments and then purchasing a new ticket with a mix of available funds from the cancellation and new money.

The easiest way to do this is to call DL with your proposed new routing and to ask what the reroute will require in terms of new money.

Presuming that the $750 figure is accurate and that there is a $200 change fee, DL would calculate the new fare and the new money would be the new fare reduced by $550.

This is a much simpler approach than torturing yourself with the intricacies of refaring the ticket yourself. Especially because your employer is paying the fare difference and what you really need is a good accounting of how you get to a final number.

Always call. DL might be charitable with the change fee.

You might be better off just changing the return to LAS/ATL/RIC and getting a super cheap ticket LAX/LAS as they can be had for next to nothing. That might be far more cost effective than adding a stop over on a domestic ticket.

Even looking at a flight leaving today on Expedia, tickets can be had for as little as $35 dollars (not on DL but still) So I'd definietly price out both ways

This should be a very easy change to make but it would be much easier to do it over the phone than try to do it yourself online.

Also be sure to check how your employer will reimburse you and what they need. If you are using the value of your vacation ticket, will they give you cash for their portion of it (i.e. LAX-LAS, LAS-RIC and the change fee)? If so, how will you be required to document?

Or a cheap round trip LAX-LAS-LAX so all you are changing on your return is the date (none of the routing). Problem you may have overall is because you havent flown any of the ticket yet you are going to have the whole ticket reprice. If you did the separate round trip might be better to wait to change the date of the return until you have flown the outbound

Actually worked out better than I could have hoped. I didn’t think a P class ticket was changeable. It was. DL just rebooked me on the same flights a week later. No charge. No muss. No fuss.

In the domestic market, nearly everything but an E fare is changeable.

Glad it worked out for you!

P class does not indicate whether it is changeable or not. The fare details are the only place where this can be determined. Of the discount FC fare classes, P is the highest, so it's more likely that a P fare is refundable than, say, a G fare, but it's not a hard and fast rule.