lowburn

Hi there, I recently booked standard economy on AF for an upcoming trip JFK-CDG-RAK via the KLM site as I had a large KLM ecredit I needed to burn from covid cancellations. Couple days later I realized I made a mistake with the booking and want to cancel, however KLM is no longer doing ecredits for nonrefundable flights.

I see I am able to change my flight from Standard to Flex... If I do so and then cancel, will I get a refund on the full ticket, or just the amount spent to change from Standard to Flex? Apologies if this is sort of an obvious question, but it seems like kind of a silly workaround for the fare rules! Thanks

dkeng

Someone else was in a similar predicament recently

Is that possible? - refunding a non "refundable fare" by rebooking to full flex fare?

Expect to only be able to refund the additional cost to the flex fare, not the original ticket.

Your best bet could be to hope for a schedule change or cancellation, not so low chance of that these days...

mbizz

did this work? I want to cancel a nonrefundable fare and am considering changing it to a flex ticket on another date and requesting a refund.

Also i noticed there was a 5 min schedule change on one of the flights - is that enough to get a free refund?

physicsdude

Usually, if there is a schedule change by KLM (usually a delay), then you are entitled to either a free refund or a free switch without payment of difference of fare. You can try calling via phone, but you will need to yell at the people to get this to work if you're calling the regular line from North America because that call center is horrible.

From what's written above, if you upgrade to a flex ticket, then you will only get refunded the amount that was spent to upgrade to the flex ticket, not the entire cost.

irishguy28

That would be a “no” to both questions

mbizz

just to follow up, they said the schedule change had to be greater than 90 mins for refund / free change

Jeroennl

To reopen this discussion I have a question.

I discussed this topic with a social media agent of KLM. I have a standard ticket now and I will rebook it to a Flex ticket.

I asked the specific questions and asked If I will be refunded fully including the original amount paid for the ticket. They confirmed this 3 times during our conversation. So is the information on FT outdated or does the agent gives me the wrong information?

And will this written confirmation be enough if I don't get fully refunded to sort it out with them? As well I can't find any information about this specific situation in the fare conditions.

Thank you!

hhdl

Both are in some sense correct. When changing from Standard to Flex, what you are actually doing is getting a new ticket and paying for it with the value of the Standard ticket plus some other method of payment.

So if the Flex ticket is refunded, it will refund to the method of payment: the difference between Flex and Standard in cash equivalent and the value of the Standard ticket as a voucher (likely with the same expiration date as when you'd cancel the Standard ticket, but some airlines implement the voucher with a reset expiration date).

eheinz

Bumping this to see if anyone else has any more recent intel and also to test the statement quoted above. Would one in fact get a voucher for the full amount of the Standard ticket? That would be perfectly fine with me, but I'd be concerned that instead I'd merely get refunded the amount of the taxes and lose the entire rest of the value of the Standard ticket.

The specific situation I face is that the fare has gone down by around €300 for two pax, enough to make it worth my while to chase whatever relief is available. Stupidly I didn't book this through Delta (it's a code-share route on AF metal) -- if I had it would be child's play to cancel the ticket, immediately get a voucher, and then immediately rebook at the new lower price, keeping the excess value of the voucher for future travel. Is there any such reliable work-around for 057 ticket stock?

on.the.bowery

About one year ago,

I had an intra European KLM return on a standard fare.

I went on the to the “modify my flight” tab and modified the booking. Kept the same itinerary but modified it to Flex.

One week later I cancelled the booking and KLM refused to fully reimbursed me, saying the ticket was originally in standard.

I contacted a lawyer and contacted KLM together with them saying I was starting the process to sue them (or take the ticket office in the country of sales to court) for not respecting the conditions of the new ticket (or contract of carriage) that “cancelled and replaced” the older one.

The lawyer forwarded the letter to the head office in Amsterdam on Monday (or by email I can’t remember).

On Thursday I was fully reimbursed.

The terms and conditions of carriage were vague enough back then, I remember the old terms leaving us all with doubts before taking action.

One airline that I know is much more clearer on this. (Changing from standard to flex) is ICELANDAIR. Which only reimburses the added amount to the standard fare. But it’s clearly stated on their website.