englishvalencia

Hello All,

I notice that Iberia have changed the time of departure of a couple of my flights by around 10 minutes.

I booked directly on Iberia.com and the website now gives me the choice of accepting or refusing the changes.

The flights I originally booked are no longer perfectly-suited to me and, if, by virtue of Iberia's small schedule change, I am able to change them for flights to the same destination on different days, I'll do it.

I would just like to know what happens if I press "refuse". I don't want an automatic refund because the flights were great value and, if I can't change the dates, I'll still fly on them. I'm just wondering if Iberia.com will let me re-book after refusing the changes. I suspect that if they refer me to a telephone sales agent, that agent will say I'm taking the piss.

Does anyone have any experience of refusing these minor schedule changes online?

Cerebrito

If you click refuse, it will just tell you to call the reservations centre. After clicking refuse, you can go back and accept them if you want.

I had some minor changes to some of my s/h flights (about 90 minutes, so a little more than yours). I phoned up and explained that the flight arrived too late for the meeting I needed to attend, so they said they would refund me the money. I then bought another flight on Vueling instead.

craigthemif

You will just be asked to call the reservations centre.

My GF had a Barcelona to Madrid to somewhere last year and there was a schedule change on the BCN-MAD that made things rather tight for an intercontinental connection (would have to wait until next day with any major delays)

She rang up with an excuse about a dodgy leg meaning she couldn't move fast enough to get to T4S in time. After some prodding the agent (who offered a wheelchair transfer) put her on a flight the evening before, which is what my GF really wanted in order to meet a friend for dinner.

That said, Celebrito is right - it's always best to have a highly credible excuse why the new plans don't work for you and why you need a refund. To get moved to a different flight, that's even harder work, but you might be allowed to pay the fare difference without added penalty.

Be prepared for a "no" though on a 10-minute change. I recently cancelled an Avios award that had suffered a few minutes schedule change, and there was no way to avoid the cancellation fee.

Cerebrito

I didn't really have to explain much or try hard to demand a refund. But I do have status and fly ~100 segments a year with IB.

I was a bit upset that I had been moved off of the first flight of the day. I assumed that the earlier flight was now full and I had been moved onto a later flight, but the agent said that the flights had been rearranged as they switched from their summer to winter schedule, and the new flight was now the first one of the day.

Hollandair

Had a 5 minute schedule change to a 80$ one-way non-ref fare. Called them and got a full refund without a problem.

Steph Bustos

what was the excuse you gave them?

LupineChemist

I've had similar (a 10 minute change to change a LGW/LHR connnection to a much more expensive LHR connection with no change) and just didn't give an excuse. I just said I'd like to change it and it was fine. This was before I had status, too.