Question for the group. My partner and I planned to fly to Brazil tomorrow, she needs to be there next week and I was just tagging along for the weekend.

She received her visa but I have yet to receive mine (PSA start more than 2 weeks out as getting an acceptable photo took forever and still may not be cleared). If I don�t get the visa she would prefer to not go down until Sunday/Monday rather than be alone for the long weekend in S�o Paulo.

She purchased D1 down and PE back flight. I had a PE purchase with a GUC applied on the front end. I�m fine getting refund for mine; but hers is the issue. To change the outbound to Sunday is like $2k-3k up charge.

Is it safe to assume that IF she needs to change the day of departure that doing it prior to the departure is best? Or is there any �benefit� to miss the flight to ATL and then try to reschedule hoping for IRROP or a kind agent. There is plenty of D1 space available on Sunday flights from ATL, MCO and maybe someplace else too.
Thanks in advance for any good advice.

At this point, you have lost the advance purchase and it will likely only get more expensive as you get closer to departure. If you no show the outbound flight, her return will be automatically cancelled. Since the entire ticket will need to be repriced, there is no real advantage to no showing the flight.

That is what I was afraid of (the cancel return) so at the very latest we would change tomorrow once we know there is no evisa chance.

If you are flying ATL-GRU, both Sunday flights are currently J3. If she could fly out on Monday instead, both flights have Z inventory open and may potentially be cheaper. There are roundtrip Z fares available on route with no advance purchase requirement that are not particularly expensive. Although they do have a 7 day min stay requirement which could potentially be an issue if changing departure to Monday will result in trip being for less than a week.

IMO it would make more sense for her to fly tomorrow, even without you, if she can't go on Monday. Remember that you'll also probably be hit with hotel late cancellation fees if both of you no show or cancel your hotel reservation after the deadline. There are worse things than a weekend alone in Brazil.

Mr. Tickets, MSPeconomist, xliioper Thanks for the input; the advice from this group is always very useful in these situations.

We returned last night from our previous trips and decided to simply plan for the best case and repack the bags and be prepared to depart for the airport at noon local time in case the eVisa was approved... well 2 hours before that go-no-go we (I) received the eVisa. So we are now at the airport (waiting on a delayed flight to/from ATL) but we will very likely be in Sao Paulo tomorrow morning.

Thanks for the help.