Fiberwalker

We have a round trip ticket we bought months ago leaving tomorrow night, but because of scheduling issues we can't fly at the time of the flight. But there were later flights available from Iberia so I called and asked if we could change our flight. They said they couldn't help us with that, but we could buy another ticket and fly out and use the return portion of our ticket without cancellation.

I was a little skeptical about this but found an old thread that indicated Spanish courts required that Iberia honor the full ticket even if the first leg was missed/cancelled.

So we bought a second ticket to fly out later, and I've checked in with that second flight. What should I do about the original flight? Should I check in? I want to make sure our return ticket is honored.

craigthemif

Wow. Shockingly bad advice from the agent. There's nothing you can do to prevent yourself being deemed a no-show. Checking in but not showing up is irrelevant, probably makes things a bit worse.

Maybe the agent is right, but I would have thought we would have heard about a formal policy change by now. (based on the court case)

Good luck and please report back whatever the outcome....

MfromL

Actually, the agent was right. This was made public last year, but of course, IB does tries to keep it little known so passengers do not abuse the policy. You can read it here using Google Translate. This, however, only applies to IB, not OW airlines nor IAG partners. And, they might charge you a differencial price —under the logic that the one-way ticket is more expensive that a roundtrip.

craigthemif

I read the Spanish newspapers as well. They aren't always reliable...

I'd rather see a few reliable FT-er data points so I hope the OP returns to update us.

marconess

Maybe the tickets were booked via a third party? So the "return itinerary" is actually two single tickets booked on Iberia - hence the advice from the call centre that booking a new outbound ticket wouldn't affect the new inbound?

alanw

I have take then return flight after missing the outbound on IB before. They'll let you do it without much fuss. I was in C FWIW.

The link above is to an article that talks about a recent supreme court case where IB were sued by the consumer protection office over the canceled return flights and lost, so it's a real thing.

Often1

Would be nice if OP had returned and let us know what happened.

The Spanish decision is not necessarily a great result as nothing in the decision stops IB from repricing the ticket from a return to a single.

While datapoints would be helpful, what would be more helpful is if IB changed its COC and fare rules to reflect the decision just as LH did several years ago for Germany.

Fiberwalker

Update:

When we arrived in Madrid we asked the help desk if they knew what we could do to make sure our return ticket was valid. The lady took a look and said that we would only have to pay ~1,600 EUR each to convert our round trip tickets to a one way ticket. Considering the original ticket was just $225 round trip I thanked for the time and booked a return ticket using United points.

Lesson learned. Sure the ticket isn't cancelled but it effectively is. Wouldn't mind finding a way to push this up the courts in Spain to see what would happen but I don't have any Spanish resources to use here.

craigthemif

Thanks for the update.

I certainly understand that you didn't want to take the risk of relying on your return flight but I was wondering whether you tried to check in online for it just as a test? Or otherwise play around with your booking after the first flight was no-showed, to see whether it disappears as it normally would, or whether it appears to remain valid.

Although what the Madrid agent told you sounds plausible, it also sounds exactly like what they would have said before the court ruling...

Fiberwalker

I did try to check in multiple times online and in the app, it wouldn't let me. I kept getting notices that I should check in via email but when I'd try the app would say "Check-in not available" and it had an error that said the booking was not properly issued or something like that.

I did not try to resolve or check-in at the airport on Monday for my return. Just checked in and flew my alternative flight home.

craigthemif

Thanks for the update and well done with the test. ^

It looks an awful lot like your ticket is effectively cancelled, unless you pay to convert it into a one-way as you were told by an agent. I imagine that we'll see Iberia back in court before too long...

tobsw

TBH, no one really cares about this. It was always a business focused outcome, never a benefit for consumers. Remember that OCU, the institution that started the whole process is privately funded. They just needed some + PR in order to secure funding.

Just a reminder that if you have a complain against an airline, AESA is the Spanish institution designated by the Spanish Government. Nowadays their resolutions are not legally binding, but it's planned that in the near future AESA will be a designated "alternative dispute resolution (ADR) institution".