(General) Date change cost on J ticket?
 

Hi guys,

In the Premium fare forums, I've noticed that there are a lot of good fares that are, understandably, restricted to certain travel periods, min/max stay etc.

So, say that an example fare condition is that travel is between Jan-March 2015, max stay is 2 month. I book the fare under these conditions, flying late Jan returning in Feb.

However, say I didn't want to fly back in February and wanted to fly back in April. What would the cost of the date change involve? I know it would be fee + fare difference, but I'm really confused as to whether this be a minimal, moderate or costly figure.

What really puts me off is the range of prices in J. In Y, I could understand if it was between $100-$600, but in J, is it a similar ballpark or is it more like $100-$6000?

Any clarity would be much appreciated.

It largely depends on the airline and routing(s) involved - if you provide further details, perhaps FTers can assist.

:)

There is no generic answer. You need to read the fare rules for what you are purchasing and understand them. But in general, if the discount fares are for a certain period and you want to travel during a different period, it will not be cheaper to book the cheaper fare and change it.

For some of the very cheap fares, they are completely non changeable so you would lose the full value.

For some there may be a change fee and the ticket would be repriced. If the discount fare is only for travel by Feb and you change to March it will reprice to whatever the lowest applicable fare is for then, which could be $100 more or $10,000.

If it is a published fare you can find the fare rules through ExpertFlyer or ITA Matrix, which would also allow you to price up the current fares for when you want to travel.

Thanks for the replies guys.

I've found an example that shows the issue I'm talking about. Flying BKK-LHR, then FRA-BKK on Gulf Air departing Feb 9, returning Feb 19 is about $3000.

Now if I fly out on the same date but return on 15 June instead, the fare jumps to $6000.

I'm not really looking to book this, or any fare per say, but I just sort of want to understand the whole date change fiasco which really confuses me immensely. :confused:

Say the fare conditions state that date changes are allowed at a $150 fee, but tickets are nonrefundable.

So if I book the fare, and then call them to change the date of the FRA-BKK sector, I assume the realistic answer be that the fare difference will be substantial?

Would it make any difference if I flew out on the BKK-LHR leg and then called them up to change?

Also, how is the fare difference calculated? Is it the overall fare or by sector?

Thanks for the help!

I can't find the $3k fare you're talking about, I only see the $6k prices.

Basically, fares are published for a certain route that may apply to certain date ranges and require booking into certain fare classes as well as other conditions.

It may be that the cheaper fare is not valid until 15 June, or it may be that there is no fare availability for 15 June. Or it may be that you cannot have a stopover of more than X days, which by moving the return date further invalidates the cheaper fare, or there may be blackout dates for when you can't travel.

If you call to change then it will be repriced plus the change fee, so if your current fare is $3k and fares for the dates you wish to travel on are $6k then you will pay $150 + $3k. Again, it may not be possible depending on the fare rules.

Possibly, again it depends on the fare rules whether it will be repriced or not and if it is allowed to be changed to the date range you want. Sometimes it will not be repriced after the first segment is flown, but it still requires the fare bucket availability as applicable to that fare.

The fare difference is calculated by repricing the whole itinerary as if it was a new booking. So as I said unless there is no change fee or the fare rules state it won't be repriced, booking one set of dates and changing will never be cheaper than booking the dates you want.

Here are some example fare rules for GF for BKK-FRA return in business, you can see there are minimum and maximum stay restrictions, blackout dates, sales restrictions and other conditions:

Results from ExpertFlyer.com