Rescheduling return leg after onward journey completed to avoid change fee/ fare diff
 

I usually do a trip (sometimes two) to JFK every month or so, usually in Y and sometimes in J. Quite a few times times, I don't know my exact travel dates about a week prior to departure and so the tickets turn out to be expensive. I've been thinking of a way to avoid this and am basing my assumption on the fact that EK allows you to reschedule your travel dates if you have completed 1st sector for no charge or fare difference.

I was thinking if I should book a return ticket from BOM (BOM-JFK-BOM) and another from JFK (JFK-BOM-JFK), utilize the onward legs of these tickets and keep the return legs of both these tickets open to take care of these situations so that I can avoid buying expensive tickets at the last minute.

What issues do you see with this strategy? What else should I be aware of?

Hold on.

Changing after flying the outbound only doesn't incur any repricing of the base fare. Eg. you bought a W (cheapest flex) for $1800 last month and now they raised the prices to $2000. If you change your flights after flying outbound, they won't ask you to cough up the extra $200 (after all you've already flown one sector and they can't reprice it fairly).

You will still have to pay the change fee. Ex-India I believe it is about INR 3000 - 5000? But ex-JFK change fees are usually $200-400.

And, you need a seat in the fare bucket originally purchased. If that's not available, you will still need to pay the fare difference, however based on the price at time of purchase (eg. the R fare when you bought you ticket was $2100 and now it's $2300 - they'll price the difference as $2100 (R) - $1800 (W)).

Hope that makes sense. I know someone who faces the same issue with frequent J trips to Italy from India, and having to make a lot of date changes works out very expensive.

ETA: Also, availability is much better on USA POS than India POS, but fares are much higher.

Ok, here's some analysis for you.

Contrary to my expectations, fares are actually lower ex-JFK (maybe there's a sale on now or something)

ex-BOM (WREYOI): 1486 1685 2018 2462 3429 2950
ex-JFK (WREYOI): 1151 1308 1466 4355 ----- 4836

The Y fares ex-BOM have a INR2k change. O fare has INR3k and I fare has free changes.
All the fares (I didn't compare J/C) have $400 change fee. And they require a min stay of SUN for Y fares and 7 days for J fares.

Clearly if you're likely to make changes, paying $400 each time is not the way to go. The fares ex-BOM also have no minimum stay. This would actually be a great strategy for someone based in the US - cheap changes ex-India and no minimum stay. Though if your dates are fixed for any trip (say its last minute departure from JFK and cheap fares are available and you know when you're going back) then you're better off saving $300-400 on the WRE fares from the USA.

Thanks a ton ung1. That is very helpful to know - the $400 change fee is a complete deal breaker. Gotta think of something else - any suggestions?

Are the tickets expensive due to the fares being high or due to the fact that there are no seats in the cheapest fare classes? If it's the latter (which I suspect) there is not much you can do, I think. :(

Mainly, no seats in the cheapest fare classes.