Standing by for a later flight???
 

My wife has a ticket for a flight on June 30 LGA-DFW. THe event that she needed to go has been postponed so she now needs to travel on July 3. The ticket is non-refundable with restrictions, and we were contemplating whether to pay the change fee and the fare difference (the total is about 200 dollars) or just go stand by on the flight on July 3.
The Most important question, however, is that whether it is possible at all to travel on a later flight as a stand-by passenger?
And secondly, if it is advisable to wait for a flight a day before the 4th of July? Even in that case, will they charge the change fee and the fare difference, which will be considerably higher on the day of the flight?

Grateful for advise/ responces http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

???? http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/confused.gif
WHERE'S EVERYONE WHEN YOU NEED THEM? http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/frown.gif

[This message has been edited by knit-in (edited 05-17-2001).]

Many airlines permit stand-by on earlier/later flights onthe same day. Unless you can get an approval in the record for travel on another day you're SOL. Sorry.

Concur with above. Expect to pay the change fee. You might as well go ahead and do it now to get it out of the way and confirm your seat, unless you think her travel plans may change again.

Remember the fare basis for the change is based on the what the fares were on the day the ticket was purchased not what the fares are now.
eg I changed a ticket from one day to another and although the fares at the time of the purchase were a few hundred dollars less then when I made the change the fare used was the basis on the ticket (QCABE21 or whatever)
Have to agree with the other posters though that standby is only good on some airlines on the day of travel

Putting it in numbers, if the ticket today is pricing at 315 dollars and the day that I had bought it, it was $215, then I just need to pay the hundred dollars (change fees) plus the fare difference (in this case 15 dollars in my favor)in order to rebook on a later flight.

If this is correct then it is very pleasent news indeed. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif
THank you

You got that wrong, if the ticket is pricing today at $315, and your previous ticket was $215, you have to pay the $100 fare difference plus the $100 change fee, sorry, kiddo http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/eek.gif

that bubble burst real quick. it did seem too good to be true.
thanks

If something appears to be too good to be true, it usually is. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/frown.gif

At least, that has been my experience.

Once again as I have said over and over again it helps to have a competent ta that knows their business.
Your fare basis is on the day the ticket was purchased.
So lets try to break this down.
You buy a Q****** fare in April for travel in June. In May you need to change the return to July. If a Q seat is available your fare basis is what the Q fare was in April. Now if it turns out that the Q fare is more for travel in July than June, in April, you pay the extra + the change fee. If it is the same only the change fee. If Q fares have gone up since you purchased the ticket it doesn't matter. If Q fares have gone down - well you should have already gotten the difference in an MCO.
The bigger problem at least cost-wise is if their are no seats left in your fare basis, Q in this example. If only B ticket seats are available, for example, you will have to now pay the difference for a B seat and at the price of what a B seat was in April. Once again this doesn't have anything with whether the price has went up or down on B seats since your purchase. Your changed ticket is based on what the prices were on the date that you bought the ticket. Of course if the price of a B seat went down then I would obviously request an MCO for the difference.
So my recommendation is that after you go and confirm this with your own personal ta (what a collective gasp, I don't have a competent ta) is that you look for seats on July 3 that have the same fare basis as your original ticket on June 30 and hope that on the day that you purchased your ticket seats were the same price for both those days.
Good luck!

edited to add this remark
btw I phoned my competent ta and discussed this with her before posting since I had to do a similar thing recently for a ticket which I had to change the return from July 4 to July 5.

[This message has been edited by magic111 (edited 05-18-2001).]

Magic111:

This must depend on the rules of the specific fare as NWA has never done that to me. Case in point: I bought a K21*** ticket to travel from MKE to LAS a couple months ago. I reacently had to change the trip. NWA no longer even is offering a K21*** fare in this market and in addition there were no "k" seats available on the flights I wanted anyway. I now have a ticket with an H14*** fare code. I got charged the difference between what I originally paid for my ticket and the new fare + a $75 change fee. The fact that I went from a K***** ticket to an H****** ticket apparently made no difference at all. All that mattered was that the fare had changed from what I orginally paid.

[This message has been edited by RobertH (edited 05-18-2001).]

That was the point that I was making. If there are no seats available at the the original fare basis (in this case K*****) then you will have to buy a seat in the next least expensive fare basis. In this case an H*****.
The price you paid for the H***** was based on what the price was for H fares the day that you originally bought it. Now if you changed the outbound portion of the flight disregard everything that is said before. This only applies to the return portion and if you have to change only the return portion which was knit-in's original inquiry. If you change the outbound you do pay the new fare.
Back to my case the ticket I originally bought for the 4th was a Q***** when I needed to change the fare Q was showing for approx $200 more than my original purchase with Q seats available. but and let us make this a big but I paid what Q fares were on the day I purchase the tix for the 5th which happen to be $20 more than the 4th and not the $200 more or half that $100 for the return.

thanks for your elaborate reply to my query magic111. Actually the change is in the outbound leg of my wife's journey.

My travel agent (nwa.com!! http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif) shows that the $275 fares that I see now are actually Q fares, which was my original fare basis as well, so if I understand you correctly, what I need to pay for a change is the $100 change fee and the difference which is now $60. Of course this is taking into consideration that the Q fare for the 3rd July on the day we purchased the ticket was same as the fares on the 30th of June.
I hope I got that right now?

Thanks again for this invaluable piece of info.

I had a non-refundable ticket for a 4pm flight yesterday. Unfortunately I had a change of plans and couldn't get to the airport til the 10pm flight. They still charged me the $100 change fee. I just wanted to get home and didn't feel like arguing. I thought I could stand-by for a later flight same day with out a change fee. What is the 'official' policy on this?

Magic111: The price I ended up paying was based on the H14*** fare on the day I made the change. They took the current (as of the date of change - May 5th) lowest available fare for the flights I wanted to change to (which happened to be an H14*** fare), subtracted what I orginally paid for the K class fare and added $75. The H14*** (if there even was one) fare on the date of the original purchase in December 2000 was never an issue.
DTownBrian: Some fares (very few) are time specific. Standing by (at no charge) for earlier or later flights on the same day are not allowed with those fares. This seems to happen when NW is matching a low price rival but is only matching fares on flights that operate at about the same time as the rival's flights.