giorginho

I am in need of advice regarding the cancellation of a LATAM flight and what my best course of action would be. Also, check to see if you too could be affected, this is a 5th freedom flight that starts/ends in SCL, connecting MAD and FRA, so quite possibly all legs could have been affected/cancelled!

The flight that concerns me is 705 FRA-MAD on April 5th. I booked this flight in May 2019, so about 11 months in advance. Because a friend of mine became interested in joining me, I started looking for tickets again in January, at first prices went up a bit and then they vanished from everywhere (it was a "funny" experience following this "flight", with all the "secrecy" and uncertainty in the past 30 days, it was like looking for a missing person). Expert flyer's seat alert still showed half of the aircraft seats as being available up to a couple of days ago ("manage my booking" also showed my booking and selected date/aircraft/seats as still being valid!), at which point the search with EF seat alert started giving me an error message. After this point the "manage my booking" now advises me that there is a "date change" (they refrain from calling this a "flight cancelled"!) and that the flight has been moved to +1 day (which is probably not true, since they were offering tickets for that date already before this, so it's very likely a cancellation). The system even asks me to "confirm" that I accept this change, they seem to have reserved seats for this change on this date, but I guess if I don't "confirm" it they will eventually sell them?

Anyway here are my main concerns:
-This was supposed to be a short trip, so I originally only planned only a 5 days stay, which is effectively only 4 days and the morning of the 5th, due to departure times. If I don't change anything else, this will be reducing my stay to effectively 3 days (the only other option available now according to LATAM's website and worth considering is 2 days earlier, but I will be working on that day, so getting to the airport will be cutting it extremely close and also my friend will definitely not be able to join me, since he's working night shifts).
-The return flight was booked the very same day as the outbound, but on a separate ticket (all reservations were made with the same OTA (myTrip), even the hotel)! The OTA's equivalent of "manage my booking" now only returns an error message! After reading a couple of comments here I am getting the feeling that at least LATAM won't allow me to change the return flight. If that is true it will be very upsetting. What if they had moved the flight to +3 days? I would then be left with a 1-day trip! Or worse... it can't be outside my passenger rights that I maintain the trip time that I originally planned for. What if I tell them no other outbound flight suits me? If they cancelled my outbound flight I should reserve the right to cancel the return flight, even if booked separately! It is the same airline!! I even called LATAM out of curiosity in May and asked what conditions apply regarding changes (making the point that booking 11 months in advance may mean that my plans could change), they told me the "usual", because it is a cheap fare no changes permitted etc..So if I am not allowed to change anything, then the minute they change something I too should be able to change whatever I want. They can't possibly have everything "their way"! I was in fact "forced" to make separate bookings, because the fares for the return leg were not the same as the outbound leg and searching for a 2-way ticket turned up much higher prices as 2 individual searches did.
-What about the hotel I booked in Madrid? With their "solution" I will miss the first night on what is also a non-refundable booking! I booked everything non-refundable to keep the cost down and was committed to making the trip. If I don't show up on the first night they will probably charge me for 5 nights AND give my room to someone else! I see LATAM being clearly responsible for that.
-NOBODY (neither LATAM nor the OTA) has informed me about any change at all!!!! Reading here, I think this is a "tradition" of theirs! So what? If my friend wasn't interested in finding tickets I would have went to the airport and there would be nobody at check-in? Reading here I assume that LATAM will place the responsibility of informing passengers with the OTA.

What should my strategy be? Since they haven't yet notified me, should I contact them immediately, or should I wait and see if they don't notify me until 2 weeks before scheduled departure? I don't know if the "2-weeks-rule" will apply, or if it is even relevant in this case.
I wouldn't have a problem flying 1 day later, as LATAM now proposes, but I would like my return trip to be rebooked to also 1 day later as well the hotel booking to be "moved" by 1 day in the future. I think the hotel shouldn't be the biggest problem, if I act now (within the next week), but I don't want my return flights to cost me anything more than what I have already paid for 10 months ago!
Since departure and arrival are within the EU, then EU passenger protection laws apply, however I don't really know which one is relevant, since this is not a delay.

Does anyone have any previous experience with this specific issue and what could be achieved?
Thanks for your input.

dbasulto

The route has been discontinued as of June, maybe it has to do with this... probably they will rebook you on LH.

There is another thread about it.

MfromL

Yeah, this route was cancelled because LA announced a direct flight from SCL to FRA, taking out the fifth liberty.

giorginho

Thanks for the quick reply. I used Google now and found your thread. Searching for it before I posted only turned up other results, such as the thread where one of my links directs to. Like I said though, they "want" to rebook me on their own, very same LA705 flight just 1 day later. At this point I don't know if requesting to be rebooked with LH would satisfy me, as I wanted to try LATAM's long-haul business class hard product, but thanks for giving me this idea, it might be better to be rebooked on the same date, than to go through all the trouble with the return flight and hotel. However, if I am to make this request myself, is it advisable that I wait until T-14 days?
But the route still exists on other future dates. LATAM's proposed alternative, just 1 day later, is on the same 5th freedom flight! So is the return flight, for which no change is yet made.
Like @dbasulto mentioned, they'll terminate it later this year, there's no direct service to FRA yet, so that's most certainly not the reason for cancelling my flight!

Often1

The reason for the cancellation of your specific flight is less significant than the availability of the alternative. Why not call and ask to be rebooked on LH?

The longer you wait, the less likely there is to be availability. Waiting does you no good other than standing on form in any event (because you do know).

Semphyra

Due to commercial definitions, the route between Madrid (MAD) and Frankfurt (FRA), will cease operations on Saturdays and Sundays from March 29 to June 28, 2020. These flights are already closed for sale.

If the proposed alternative does not satisfy the passenger, the latter may accept a change or refund according to the standards defined in the Passenger Protection Policy.

https://www.latamtrade.com/en_us/new...ad_fra_solo_en

giorginho

Because "officially", like I already said, I still know absolutely nothing! I don't know how "guaranteed" it is that they will accept to rebook me on LH, since, like I said, they are already showing me 'booked' or 'reserved / pending confirmation' on their own Monday flight. So they may propose, that since there is still sufficient time, they don't actually need to rebook me on another carrier and simply offer me a refund (which will definitely cause even more conflict). But if I call now, then I will "officially" know about it, so I can't claim afterwards "you never informed me". Anyway, is your suggestion still to contact LATAM immediately, or should I try the OTA (and if both, in which sequence)?
Thanks for the info (so indeed they ceased weekend flights and mine was on a Sunday) and WOW!!! Feb. 6th??!!! Their own website might have removed the flight from the search engine already on that date, but on various OTAs it was still available until about 1 week after this and Expert Flyer was displaying this flight normally until a couple of days ago (and so was LATAM's "manage my booking"!)! The last sentence in their announcement is pretty much trolling, I don't see anything "better" or different in the linked website as the "proposed alternative", given the circumstances regarding this case (change/cancellation about 8 weeks before the flight!).

giorginho

OK, a little update, so I called them today (had to wait over 50 minutes for my call to connect!) and after the lady on the phone confused this cancellation with the change in plans as of July 2020 (she didn't know about the cancellation of those weekend flights until then) she then pretty much offered to rebook me to any Lufthansa or Iberia flight on the originally booked date (since "messing" with the return leg and the hotel dates is already looking like a bad idea). Unfortunately they won't allow me to change the departure airport (I had a feeling they wouldn't, but I thought I'd give it a shot and ask them, since Frankfurt is quite far away from my trip's starting point and there would have been quite a few other, more convenient airports to depart from ---had originally booked the flight from FRA for what it is (cheap, long-haul biz-class etc.), not for closest proximity to my origin---).

So considering my options I was browsing LH's website (I don't think I am going to fly with Iberia Regional Air Nostrum's Canadair 1000s, having originally booked the 787-9! :P) and now my main "concern" is will I get any miles and if yes, then how many? If I search for LH flights I get a few interesting options, including some D fares (even D fares that include a connection!) that will give me quite a few Aegean Miles&Bonus (which I mainly collect). Other options include Z fares that earn far less miles and the cheapo P fares that earn absolutely nothing.
Does anyone know out of experience if these re-booked tickets on LH metal get issued on the fares that are currently published/available on LH's website or could LATAM have access to LH's award space or other zero earning fares?
What flight(s) I'll end up (re-)booking (I've narrowed the search down to 3 different itineraries) will now most likely depend on the mileage factor, as I figured: since I can't get the premium 787 hard product, I should at least make up for it by collecting some miles (the original LA flight would have granted me about 1780 miles with Alaska, now, if they tell me they will re-book me into a flight that shows up on LH's webiste as a D fare, I'll get them to book me an itinerary via MUC that will give me 3500 miles!).

PS. I actually called the OTA first and wow, what a horrible experience, no options offered except to either get what LATAM was showing as an alternative (their own flight on the next day) or a full refund of the tickets TO Madrid and neither a refund of the return leg tickets nor a refund of the hotel costs (again, all of the above were booked with that very same OTA!). I wonder (if I would ever be in such a bad mood I might actually seriously think about it) if I could get a compensation of 400 Euros per person according to EU 261 and just stay at home (I told them about that on the telephone, the "senior assosiate" I was talking to seemed as if she couldn't care less about this scenario!).

Semphyra

On Lufthansa you are going to get booked on P class. For Iberia on the same fare bucket or lower

giorginho

Thanks for the reply. Will it still be P class even if Lufthansa and also the ITA Matrix are only showing D or Z fares available?

Matrix

Edit: OK, I just finished with the somewhat long process of re-booking via telephone. The very friendly agent informed me about a couple of things: First of all they are supposedly required to re-book me in the same exact fare, which in my case would be Z (I didn't bother confirming if that would also be the case, had I picked an alternative LH flight that showed availability in P, because it didn't fit my schedule and I didn't want to "risk" it anyway)! So I would have probably had no choice but to re-book into the direct flight in Z class (or take the connecting flights that have Z available). Now the reason why both this agent and his colleague (from yesterday) are (still) seeing the "D fares" from above as available options, is because according to him they show up in their system as Z fares (though the agent did say, that this information could be outdated and that an attempt to book it could result in that info getting changed)! Here's where it gets a bit weird. He told me that in the past, if someone had booked a specific fare (lets say Z) and the only fares available for re-booking were of a higher class (say D), then they would actually have to "manually" ask Lufthansa to release a Z fare in order to be able to book that! Nowadays he told me they will (probably) be able to book the D fare directly, but it will be passed on and show up in the "internal system" (words in " " are my own interpretation of what I heard), as a Z fare. So this part is "tricky" and there is a possibility that I would book the connecting flights and still just get Z, not D. Well of course, even in such a case I would get 2250 miles instead of 1250 with the direct flight, but I did pick the direct flight in the end, because it will be a little bit more convenient. I did consider briefly to wait a couple of days or maybe 1-2 weeks and see if all availability changes to D fares, but I wanted to get it over with asap, since I value my time much more than I do 1000 miles.

So all in all I got downgraded from the Dreamliner to the A321, I got downgraded from a full-flat bed to a 17" narrow seat that reclines a couple of cm (just flew the LH A321 last week!) and I will get 1250 miles instead of over 500 more (but at least it will be miles that I do collect very actively as opposed to what would have probably been Alaskan miles).
3 major drawbacks compared to what I had booked (well ok 2 major ones and a negligible one).
On the other hand I will now arrive about 6,5 hours earlier and.... well that's just about it. If you ask me if these 6,5 hours are worth the changes in aircraft and seat, I'd say no (even if I wasn't going to use the bed function). But for now they wouldn't offer my anything as compensation voluntarily.

To my question why nobody bothered informing me about the cancellation (!) he said that becaused I booked with an OTA they didn't forward them my contact info. He did in fact ask me about my e-mail address in order to send me the new booking confirmation. However, after looking up my new booking on LH's website I noticed that my phone number is in fact noted. Which directly contradicts his aforementioned argument, since I never gave him my phone number, so how could this have reached LH, if it never even reached LA? It obviously did reach them, so they had an excellent chance to inform me via SMS about the cancellation but didn't!