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Changes to first International Sector on AONE RTW

Can anyone tell me whether it is possible to change the date of the first International sector (not the routing) on an ex-SFO AONE within 7 days of departure ? The BA desk are giving me conflicting opinions on this...! I would want to move it forward by about one month. Thanks

Any change to the first segment should trigger a re-pricing and re-issue, not necessarily something you'd want to do without good reason. But afaik they can't tell you 'no' - I believe although ex-NA has to be ticketed 7 days in advance, the ticket remains fully refundable (is there a fee?) so you can always refund it and buy another.

You might find a BA employee who doesn't know the rules and lets you change the date, but in my experience with BA, their people generally seem business-like and deal with OWEs correctly. Changing the first flight changes the effective date of the ticket, a fairly significant detail, among other things.

You cannot alter the fist international flight (date, flight number or routing) once the ticket has been issued. The only way to change is to cancel the ticket (it is fully refundable if the first flight has not been taken) and book a fresh itinerary. Note that the refund can take 6-8 weeks depending on the airline's refund policy, so you may be out of pocket for a large sum for a period of time.

Many thanks for the speedy replies. I was planning to buy this ticket tomorrow (7 days ahead of travel on 8th October) and something has just come up which means I may have to delay the trip by a week or two, hence my question)
I was under the impression that if I cancelled the ticket, BA would charge me 10% of the ticket value ($1000-ish) as a penalty even if the ticket hadn't been used. Is this the case or is there a way to avoid this ?

The rules are clear on this:

Code:

  2N CANCELLATION/REFUND                                        

  3N --------------------                                       

  4N .                                                          

  5N PRIOR TO DEPARTURE                                         

  6N .                                                          

  7N ------------------------------------------------------     

  8N I BEFORE          I AFTER TICKETING DEADLINE         I     

  9N I TICKETING       I                                  I     

 10N I DEADLINE        I                                  I     

 11N ------------------------------------------------------     

 12N I FULL REFUND     I ORIGIN AREA 1 - CANCELLATION     I     

 13N I                 I PENALTY IS 10% OF THE TICKETED  I      

 14N I                 I AMOUNT.                          I     

 15N I                 I ORIGIN AREA 2/3 - NO PENALTY,    I     

 16N ------------------------------------------------------

Area 1 is the Americas.

Thanks christep. I feared that was the case. Presumably areas two and three are Europe and Asia Pacific ? There isn't somewhere in North / Central America where this 10% cancellation rule or the 7 day advanced purchase requirement doesn't apply ?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fritz

I was under the impression that if I cancelled the ticket, BA would charge me 10% of the ticket value ($1000-ish) as a penalty even if the ticket hadn't been used. Is this the case or is there a way to avoid this ?

Yes, you are correct. For tickets purchased in TC1 (USA), there is a 10% penalty for cancellation after the ticket is issued. This does not apply to tickets issued in TC2/3. Sorry to mislead you - all my OWE's are purchased in Australia (TC3).

Quote:

Originally Posted by NM

For tickets purchased in TC1 (USA), there is a 10% penalty for cancellation after the ticket is issued.

Not exactly on my reading - it doesn't matter whether the ticket has been issued - what matters is whether you are past the ticketing deadline - you can cancel a ticket issued in Area 1 without penalty before the ticketing deadline.

Quote:

Originally Posted by christep

Doesn't matter whether deadline has passed or not, it is whether the ticket has been issued or not. See the last section of this quote from the fare rules, where red text is highlight by me.

Also note the text I have quoted in italics in the Rebooking/Rerouting section relating to changes less than 7 days for TC1 originated fares.

Code:

16. VOLUNTARY CHANGES/REROUTING/PENALTIES

(A) REBOOKING/REROUTING

(1) PRIOR TO DEPARTURE

       (A) ORIGIN TC 1

             (1) BEFORE TICKET ISSUANCE - PERMITTED WITHOUT PENALTY.

             (2) AFTER TICKET ISSUANCE - CHANGES TO THE FIRST INTERNATIONAL

                  FLIGHT AND PRECEDING FLIGHTS ARE NOT PERMITTED LESS THAN

                  SEVEN DAYS PRIOR TO THE DATE OF THE FIRST TICKETED FLIGHT.

                  DATE/TIME CHANGES TO OTHER FLIGHTS PERMITTED AT NO CHARGE.

                  CHANGES OTHER THAN TO DATE/TIME PERMITTED FOR CHARGE

                  USD75.00 PER TRANSACTION.

       (B) ORIGIN TC 2/3

              UNLIMITED CHANGES PERMITTED WITHOUT CHARGE.



(2) AFTER DEPARTURE

       (A) DATE/TIME CHANGES PERMITTED AT NO CHARGE. ROUTING CHANGES OTHER

            THAN TO DATE/TIME PERMITTED AT A CHARGE OF USD75.00 PER

            TRANSACTION. IF CURRENCY OF TICKET ORIGIN IS NOT SHOWN CONVERT THE

            USD AMOUNT AT THE BSR.

       (B) IF THE REROUTING RESULTS IN AN INCREASE TO THE NUMBER OF CONTINENTS

            OR EXTRA FLIGHT SEGMENTS PREVIOUSLY CHARGED, THE TICKET SHALL BE

            RECALCULATED. TICKETS MAY BE REISSUED TO A HIGHER FARE, E.G., FROM A

            –ONE3 TYPE TO A -ONE4 TYPE FARE AND THE INCREASE IN FARE WILL BE

           COLLECTED. WHEN FLIGHT SEGMENTS ARE ADDED ABOVE THE FREE

           ALLOWANCE, THOSE CHARGES WILL BE COLLECTED. WHEN THE REROUTING

           RESULTS IN A REDUCTION TO THE NUMBER OF CONTINENTS OR EXTRA FLIGHT

          SEGMENTS PREVIOUSLY CHARGED, NO REFUND WILL APPLY.

(3) IN THE CASE OF CERTIFIED DEATH/ILLNESS OF THE PASSENGER OR PASSENGER’S

     IMMEDIATE FAMILY MEMBER OR ACCOMPANYING PASSENGER VOLUNTARY REROUTING

     IS PERMITTED FREE.



(B) CANCELLATIONS AND REFUNDS

(1) PRIOR TO DEPARTURE

     (A) ORIGIN TC 1

              (1) BEFORE TICKET ISSUANCE - FULL REFUND

              (2) AFTER TICKET ISSUANCE - 10 PERCENT OF TICKETED AMOUNT

     (B) ORIGIN TC 2/3

              NO PENALTY

Quote:

Originally Posted by christep

(How do I get this board not to strip spaces out of posts?)

Try using {code} ... {/code} instead of quoting. Its designed for retaing spaces etc to preserve the prepresentation of programming code where indentation makes it much easier to read.

Interesting how this stuff either changes over time, or is handled differently by different agents. I've never 'given back' segments, but others here have commented fairly recently about getting money back from extra segments deleted from the trip, quite different from
'WHEN THE REROUTING RESULTS IN A REDUCTION TO THE NUMBER OF CONTINENTS OR XTRA FLIGHT SEGMENTS PREVIOUSLY CHARGED, NO REFUND WILL APPLY."

Is that a new-ish rule?

Quote:

Originally Posted by JohnAx

Not new to my knowlege. The only way to get a refund it to cancel before starting the trip, or if the re-routing resulted in lower tax requirements then you should be able to get a refund for the tax difference. In these days of high fuel surcharges, the difference in tax may be sufficient to worry about a refund. And the airlines will certainly want you to pay any additional tax resulting from a re-route.

Quote:

Originally Posted by NM

Doesn't matter whether deadline has passed or not, it is whether the ticket has been issued or not.

We seem to be looking at different versions of the StarFiles. The version I quoted above is the one at: http://www.hardlink.com/~markdu/OWFi...eExplorer.html. The condition you quotes seem to apply to xGLOBnn fares (exc origin SWP) according to the StarFiles there, but not to ONE and Circle fares.

I am quoting from a PDF file provided by a OneWorld airline to its agents, with the heading "oneWORLD EXPOLORER FARES" and citing "CTR1 RULE 3015". It was last updated on August 24, with the text:

Quote:

Changes: Effective immediately AA ticketing restriction with regards to Lybia removed from para. 15 (sales restrictions); D RBD added for LP internation flights

I just checked again, and this is the most current version provided by this OneWorld airline for defining the rules. The file is called 3015ONEWRULEv10.pdf. I can email it to you if you PM me your email address.

It is definately OneWorld Explorer rules.

The ones at the site linked from the Sticky here (i.e. the ones I was looking at) are for the same fare rule, but dated in May04, so we need to get whoever runs the "~Markdu" site to update the files there if possible...