Any way to upgrade a travel agent booking?
 

Hi guys.

My stepdad has a conference in Paris in two weeks. The flights were booked by the company through a travel agent in Y (DUR-CDG). He wants to fly J but MMB won't allow any changes to the booking because it was made through a travel agent.

Is there any way around this?

Thanks.

All of my previous EK travels were booked by our Corporate Travel Agent and the only way I could pay to upgrade to J before the first flight on the ticket was to call the travel agent and pay the difference. I think it's only within 24-48 hours that the ticket will come under control of EK and then they may be able to deal with any changes, however, you may find that EK will not deal with any changes until the first leg has been flown.

Give the travel agent a call and they should be able to assist.

S

Travel agent is quoting a ludicrous amount for the upgrade. Something along the lines of R62,000 out of his pocket, making the total ticket price R74,000 (the normal J Flex ticket DUR-CDG is about R40,000).

I told him not not to pay this and said that I would work something out and get back to him.

I would upgrade with miles but there is only availability on the DXB-DUR leg for ~46,000 miles, which also seems excessive, though the ticket is Y flex.

Have you done a dummy booking to see if there are J flex (or saver) seats available? It may be that there are only flex plus seats available now for his itinerary which may coincide with the high fare quote (£4450 ish at current exchange rate).

S

Just tried a dummy booking. J Flex Plus on the outbound and J Flex on the return prices at R43,205. They pay Y, so the difference should be ~R30,000 to be paid by him. They want more than double this.

For interest sakes, it's cheaper to fly F than what the agency wants for J.

Not sure what to do now.

Hang up and call again. If same result ask why the big difference to what you're seeing.

Anytime I've looked at doing this, I would do a dummy booking and always got roughly the same price differential when it comes to doing the change.

S

Appreciate your help.

I will hit them up again with my findings and let you know how it goes.

Tell the agent to f off and that you see the following flights available (provide numbers and dates if not same as current booked) in Flex and Flex Plus (ideally provide fare buckets from ITA matrix) and the cost to upgrade is fare difference only given change fee is waived for upgrades.

Have you to Expert Flyer? If not, you can let me know the dates required (by PM if you wish) and I can look up availability for you in J, C, I and O buckets (as well as the official fares)

Hi Ahmed777

Did you get any further forward on this one?

S

Thanks for all the help guys.

It turns out that there is only J Flex Plus tickets available and it will cost around R55,000 to upgrade. It is a bit much as we paid R49,000 for return F tickets to HKG recently.

Hoping to ask at the airport for an upgrade and see what happens. Are they generally decent or does it look like he is going to be slumming it in Y for this trip?

Thanks ao so much for all your help.

Remember once you've flown a sector you can deal with EK not the agent...

At the airport it's fare difference, just like if you call, so your only hope is that Saver or Flex become available by the time you get to the airport.

Which on the day of travel they won't

Uh oh. Doesn't sound good.

I have 50k miles in my account and I just spent the balance of his and my mothers account upgrading their flights DXB-DEL and DEL-DXB from J-F so we don't even have enough miles for upgrades.

I will keep checking as it gets closer to the time and once he has flown in the hopes of something coming up but R50,000 for a Y-J upgrade to CDG is ridiculous.

Thanks guys. I'll keep you posted.