IAN-UK

OK, that's interesting and gives me some encouragement.

But let me check - did you buy the ticket before October 2020, meaning its (normal) validity would expire before the date of your new trip in October 2021?
I ask, because in my last chat (with someone in Cape Town) she said that ticket validity trumps all other considerations.

Dselvan

The ticket was purchased in March 2020 for travel in November 2020, so the yearly validity should have expired in March 2021.
But if you look at the current COVID rules on Lufthansa’s website, it is clear that travel can be postponed and completed by December 2021. If your flights were cancelled, then you are allowed an one off rebooking with no rebooking charges or change in fare difference, providing you are rebooking to the same destination in the same class of travel. If you change the destination or class of travel, you need to pay the fare difference.
Lufthansa will try to say differently but I had all the rules saved. You can quote the goodwill rule either the TWP 2011 or TWP 2013 dependent on when you booked your original ticket.

IAN-UK

Many thanks - I can restart the battle with more confidence!

Though i find the following clause in TWP 2011 difficult to interpret

• Any fare in any compartment – the fare must be repriced. If necessary, a difference has to be charged, for example for the new route, booking class or season.
  

Dselvan

I agree that is very confusing. The goodwill policy states

”TWP 2011 – Rebooking options for existing bookings (tickets issued on/before 15 May 2020):
Passengers can rebook once free of charge to a different travel date and/or a new routing, regardless of whether or not their flight has been cancelled. The trip can also be postponed until 2021, so that nothing stands in the way of a relaxing summer holiday or attending an event which has been rescheduled to next year.
The rebooking/reissue must be made by 31 January 2021 at the latest
New start of travel on/before 31 December 2021”.

However if you look at the COVID rules on Lufthansa website, it stated that
”If you hold a ticket for a cancelled or an existing Lufthansa Group flight (booked until 15 May), you can keep the ticket without having to commit to a new flight date right away. Existing bookings will initially be cancelled, but the ticket and ticket value remain unchanged.If your flight has been cancelled, you have the following options:

1. You can rebook free of charge to an alternative flight to the same destination and within the same travel class.
2. You can change your destination* and your travel class. Your ticket will remain valid and you can use it towards a future flight. Latest start of travel is 31 December 2021. If you would like to choose this option, please get in touch with us, latest by 31 March 2021. Please note that, in these cases, an additional payment might be necessary, e.g. if you change to a higher travel class or if you rebook from a short-haul to a long-haul flight.”.

Initially I was told that I need to pay a fare difference and I quoted both the above policies and I got rebooked using the goodwill policy. Either way, if your flight was cancelled, you should be able to book free of charge if you stick to your original routing.
This was first time I have booked with Lufthansa and so was a little confused by all the rules but this forum was very helpful.
Just persevere and stand your ground. You probably need to get the rebooking sorted before end of January though . Let us know how it goes.

IAN-UK

To be honest I seldom find M&M service agents over-helpful: and over the course of this year I've had some quite startling misinformation from them. One comment sticks in my mind (about rescheduling a cancelled flight) "If the ticket costs more, why wouldn't you have to pay the difference?"

BA has its own quirkiness, but I find agents generally go out of their way to assist. Generally, not always!

Dselvan

That comment about why wouldn’t you have to pay more made me howl with laughter.😀
I hope you gave them a witty comeback on that!!!

Agree comment about BA agents. My two cancelled trips this year with BA were relatively easy to sort despite 2 hours on the phone.

hugolover

A ticket that was booked in Classic fare was partly rebooked to LOT on a LH codeshare, the bag is on the ticket but ASR is chargeable. I thought Classic would map to Standard which is LOT's Classic in line with what was originally booked. On LH.com all the segments show "Economy Classic". Unfortunately as the pax is not SEN, there's no way around this.

oliver2002

Info to Agents:

We understand that it is difficult for you to navigate the various new rules related to involuntary refunds, rebookings and changes in tickets. Moreover, they are periodically updated. In order to make it easier for you to navigate, we decided to remind you of the most basic rules, as well as provide links to those pages where you can always find everything you need.

• Free rebooking (no rebooking fee will be charged) of all fares of Austrian Airlines, Lufthansa, SWISS, Air Dolomiti, Brussels Airlines and Eurowings are allowed until 28 February 2021 as often as necessary. * Both rerouting ** and dates. In this case, all conditions of the original tariff must be observed. If due to changes made (new route, different booking class or high season) the ticket has become more expensive, you need to pay the difference in the fare. For more information click here • Refunds for unused tickets and EMDs of Austrian Airlines, Brussels Airlines, Lufthansa and SWISS are available both through the reservation system (including NDC) and through the RA at BSP. The coupon status of such tickets must be "O" (OPEN). Tickets with canceled flights can be refunded according to OS / LH / LX Flight Irregularities Policy and SN Invol . If flights have not been canceled, refunds are only possible according to the rules of the applicable fare. To return tickets issued on OS / LH / LX / SN stocks with canceled flights operated by other airlines (OAL), authorization of the Service Center employees is required.

You can issue a ticket refund via GDS or NDC, even if the request has already been sent through the Refund Application. In this case, you do not need to withdraw your request. The Refund Application will be automatically deleted after the coupon status for a refund via GDS / NDC changes to “R” (REFUNDED). Further information on the return procedure

bobhope2

Bit of a newbie question - I couldn't find a definitive answer:

If the outbound flight is cancelled, under the SKCHG rules you can rebook without fee to any flight +/- 3 days. Question is what if the inbound flight is not cancelled, could that also be rebooked to any flight +/- 3 days of the original inbound flight, or must that remain the same?

Also, would that work the other way round - outbound is not cancelled, but inbound is cancelled and can be rebooked under SKCHG - can the outbound be rebooked?

Thanks

hugolover

I thought, one cancellation on the outbound means you can rebook to any date, with no collection as long as the trip length remains the same. Should both the outbound and return sectors have cancellations, the rebooking can be made for any date, and a totally different trip length. In both cases you can change the arrival and departure airports within 200 miles. Moreover, rebooking to Star is authorised for the RBD's that map to the one you booked.

TA's work to the regular irregularity rule of 3 days.

One cancellation, on any sector, means full refund no matter how small the effective schedule change is.

chris63

My thoughts also, only problem is finding an agent that’s up to speed

zchapk9

Hello all.

LH Group newbie here. I posted on the SWISS sub-forum before finding this thread which seems more specific.

I am entirely confused by these policies!

I booked Jan 2020 to fly UK-Thailand Dec 2020.
Flights were cancelled, and I called to place booking on hold. I now wish to reschedule for Dec 2021.

Should the ticket be repriced or not?

TWP 2011 reads to me as if it SHOULD. The recent guidance to travel agents posted above reads as if it should.

But the LX and LH website read as if it should not (only reprice if change of class or destination).

Please will someone explain what my rights are, and, if I’m allowed a rebooking without repricing, how I persuade an agent to do it!

many thanks.

SK AAR

Yes, you need to pay upfare if tne booking class ís no longer available. No change fee to be collected though

zchapk9

thanks.
I am supposing that the booking class (P) will be available; but that the fare in P will be higher.
In that case should they charge extra?

IAN-UK

re-scheduling for one year in the future you're probably going to exceed the ticket's 12-month's validity. It seems for some (me!) that is a problem, while others have been successful in getting rebooked without repricing.