The terms of the tickets almost certainly require that each segment be flown in the order booked. Skip one and the remainder of the itinerary will be cancelled.

You will likely need to have the tickets reissued. That will mean change fees + fare difference. It's possible that the fare will drop (or it could increase), so there may be some light at the end of the tunnel.

I would push the issuing Consulate as hard as you can. All you are trying to figure out is whether they made an error or not. And, if they did, how best to fix it.

The fare rules on the ticket may not allow travel RJ, so trying to change that segment to RJ may well mean the whole ticket is repriced.
Even if RJ is valid on the ticket, they may not have availability in the required fare class.

Just because there is an economy seat available, it may not be in the correct fare code, or may not be able to be included in the ticket already purchased.

As said, skipping a segment will mean the remaining segments will be cancelled.

I think once the first segment is flown, the ticket is under airline control (whoever the ticketing airline was) and not the TA's. If the e-ticket number begins 001 it is AA.


I guess you have three options:
1. Sort out the visa issues and travel as ticketed
2. Change ticket through AA (who I assume is the ticketing airline) to earlier travel dates on BA or RJ at whatever cost
3. Remove the segment(s) to/from JED and book separate tickets to suit, this may be more expensive than #2 as the ticket may be repriced


With so little availability to JED, I would not delay in doing options #2 or #3, as prices will only go up and planes will sell out.

I got hold of Saudi consulates in the UK, New York, and Washington DC. They all said the visas cannot be changed.

I also called AA to ask about cancelling a segment. They said I'll have to pay the $275 change fee for cancelling the LHR-JED segment, but since that segment's fare is lower now, after applying the credit, cancelling it will cost me ~$85/person.

This is a lucky and good result. I hope that you grabbed it instantly. Air ticket pricing is dynamic and can change depending on availability, in minutes.

OP is out 85 + cost of new ticket pp.

A new one way ticket looks to be around $750 for flights LON-JED before 10th July, all with connections and long layovers with total transit times of 10hr+.

Adding this to the $85 cost per ticket, it is more than the original offer to change the flight segment for $800.

Actually, we grabbed an RJ connection flight that has 3h layover for $750/person. Apart from that all the other segments will remain the same with minimal connections and good timing. Before the trip, TA was suggesting $800 for changing all the segments with segments that have many connections and horrible timings, so overall this works out much better for us.

Glad you solved it. Here is my advice otherwise:

They could conceivably try to extend the visa when they are in Saudi. Find a local agent or ask the hotel concierge. This is sometimes possible, even if getting a longer visa beforehand is not. This is obviously risky, but they would still have a couple of weeks to change their ticket if they get denied. (This assumes that they are not refused admission to Saudi if the immigration agent sees a return flight later than the visa expiration, but this is unlikely.)

Another exotic option, perhaps paired with the above, is to nest a ticket from Saudi to somewhere outside the country, e.g., to Dubai, such that their return to KSA is a couple of hours before their departure so that they can just transit. (One is supposedly allowed to transit KSA without a visa, according to the embassy in the U.S.) In any event, this would probably not be cheaper than the change fees you are facing.

Sorry, these are somewhat out-of-the-box potential solutions, but perhaps worth thinking about.