What to do when sector canx
 

So, here I am with my AONE3 ticketed and waiting for me in CAI, and I see that BA cancel today, wef 27 March, the direct service from MAN-AMS! I didn't have a reservation on this route, but had it on the ticket as tier point earner before my return to CAI. (was MAN-AMS-LHR-CAI)

So - looks like a reissue to me, I'll probably go via CDG, instead for 40pts.

Who's going to pay - me or BA?

You pay. If it had a confirmed flight coupon, then BA would have to accomodate you as it was an involuntary change. One of the few disadvantages of an open ticket.

Neither. Since you haven't started your RTW trip, and your travel is originating in area 2/3, unlimited changes are permitted without charge.

Please note: BA might charge you ticketing (or service) fees outside of the OWE rules.

To clarify the rule because it might catch someone, unlimited changes with no OWE fee are permitted for segments AFTER the first international departure. Changing the first international departure in any way (date, flight number, airline used) requires repricing of the ticket (rather important if the fare has changed). From CAI the first segment is also the first international departure so that makes it simpler. BA charges a ticket handling fee separate from the OWE fee, something like 25 GBP, so it won't be free in any case. An option is to wait and have the ticket reissued later, in case there are other changes you want to do (the 75 USD OWE fee is only 40 GBP or not much higher than what BA would charge for the "free" reissue).

Thanks for the input
 

So I think I'll just let it ride - closer to the time I'll see if I have time to do a mileage run to IST (LHR-IST-LHR-CAI), or just a tier point hop via another mainland europe stopoff before collecting next years AONEx. I may as well pay the $75 when I know what I want to do.

It's just a real p!sser that I'm ticketed two days before this comes out.

BTW - my last re-route I did at the ticket desk at LHR T1 Domestic, to drop LHR-IST-LHR-CAI and route MAN-CDG-LHR-CAI, as I had no time for the IST run. I was only charged the $75, and no ticketing fee. The desk (who weren't familiar with RTWs) were happy to accept that the $75 included all fees.

MAN wouldn't touch the ticket - even when I offered to leave it with them!

My understanding is as follows. There are two things that must happen before you have a binding contract:

• You have to pay for the ticket
• You have to fly the first sector

This is not only for RTW tickets, but for all international tickets where the carriers use the common fare tariffs. So it is possible for the airline to change the fare after the ticket is purchased and before the first flight has been taken, but in practice that is bad business and they do not. If they did, the ticket holder may elect a full refund with no service or cancelation fees etc.

Also note that the tariff calls for a ticketed destination, not a reservation. This is where an open sector remains protected. If I have an open dated ticket for a destination, and I have flown the first sector, the carrier has a legal obligation to get me to that destination at any time when the ticket is valid and used in the correct sequence. For this reason, some airlines will not issue an open dated coupon for a seasonal route as they may wear an exposure under tariff rule 80 or 90 if they do. Sometime you can get such a ticket issued by an agent who does not understand the implication of the exposure to the airline of tariff rule 80 or 90.

Normally a flight cancellation would be handled under tariff rule 240, where the passenger fails to get to the ticketed destination through no fault of their own (mis-connection, cancellation, change of aircraft resulting in insufficient seats, oversold etc). This, however, assumes the carrier still flies the route. If they no longer fly the route, but still serve the destination port (or someone else does), tariff rule 80 applies.

Rule 80 provides the carrier with essentially 3 choices.

• Re-route via another routing to the missing point on their own
  services without charge
• Re-route via another carrier to the missing point, either directly
  or indirectly, again without charge to the ticket holder
• Alternative transportation to the pont that is acceptable to the
  customer. That might be as simple as simply paying for a hire car, or
  as expensive as chartering an aircraft.

There are some cases where the missing port is an intermediate stop, the carrier can simply drop it without doing anything. This depends on the carrier and their specific carriage rules. For example, on discounted economy tickets
only on QF, they do not need to carry via the missing intermediate port (connection without stopover), but just get you the next stopover point. On QF if your ticket is Y or higher, they cannot just skip the missing intermediate port. This varies somewhat from carrier to carrier.

If they elect not to do any of the things listed above, tariff rule 90 comes into play. Tariff rule 90 is an involuntary refund, and any time the word involuntary is used, it is bad news for someone. Two reasons it is bad news - firstly it is going to be expensive, and secondly it is real money (not vouchers, coupons etc).

The amount of refund has nothing to do with the value of the ticket either. It is calculated as half of the unrestricted return fare in the class of service the ticket entitles the customer to travel in. So if the ticket was say a business class frequent flyer ticket, the refrund isn't the return of points/miles, it is the payment of an amount equal to half of the unrestricted return in business class. If the missing sector was part of the Round the world itinerary, the refund even for a relatively modest sector, could be sizeable portion of the total fare.

So, once you have flown the first sector of your RTW itinerary, even with an open dated coupon the airline has a responsibility to get you to the destination stated on the coupon, provide it is done within the validity time of the ticket and the coupon is presented in the correct sequence. In the case of MAN-AMS example above, I would expect BA would chose to re-route you at no cost to you via London. If there is a reluctance to do this, then mentioning tariff rule 80 and 90 will likely get some action ;) .

You need to ensure you are not taking a voluntary re-route (ie call the airline and ask to be changed to a particular routing) or they can chage you for the re-issue and it must fit inside the fare rules, such as max 20 sectors and max sectors within a continent, OW carriers etc. If the re-route is involuntary, they do not need to re-issue and the invol re-route does not need to comply with the fare rules. They just have to get you from MAN to AMS within the validity of the fare dates and in the ticketed sequence.

Sticky? Assuming this is all correct?

Glorious post, NM. We'll quickly add a hard copy to our travel documents! From personal experience the airlines follow those rules without prompting, but it's really nice to have some buzz-words handy when the exception occurs. Thanks very much.

So if I understand correctly this essentially means that we can go to ANC all year round using open-dated xONEx tickets and that AA would be forced to accommodate us on Alaska Airlines? (Alaska is, I believe, the only non-OneWorld Airline which counts towards status and gets Elite bonus miles on AAdvantage.)

Great Post NM !!
 

The information in your post is very useful. But where can find all these tariff rules? It would be even better if one could produce written tariffs when there are disputes.

I'm wondering how this gets interpreted for RTW tickets, particularly where the buyer acknowledges that seats will be limited.

For example, consider city pairs that have less than daily service, such as QF's DPS-PER flight, which operates only on Wednesdays. Could one show up at Denpasar on a Saturday and insist on QF flying them to Perth on that day, claiming Rule 80/90? Or would QF not be within their rights to state that seats are limited, and the next available A/D/L seat is available on the following Wednesday?

If QF could do that (and it seems reasonable to me that they could), is it not an extension of that theory to say that AA could offer you its next available A/L seat from Dallas to Anchorage, and that seat happens to be 4 months from now?

I did look on the net for an on-line link to the full tariff rules, but could not find one. The full rules should be available upon request from the carrier. You often see this referenced on tickets or at the check-in desk along the lines of "full conditions of carriage are available upon request from the airline ticket counter or corporate office" of something like that.

Perhaps someone can request this and post it somewhere??

My post above was prefixed by "My understanding is as follows". My information comes from someone involved heavily in the industry for many years who has proved to be very reliable and accurate in the past, who relayed an experience where he claimed payment for invol cancellation from QF for a PER-SYD business class flight under rule 90, and he noted how the QF station manager in PER was horrified at just how much cash he had to hand over.

You need to understand the reasons Rule 80/90 may be activated. If the pax has a confirmed reservation/ticket and the airline refuses to carry them, then that is involuntary cancellation and the airline is responsible for getting the pax to the destination.

If the pax has an open dated ticket and turns up demanding a seat, the airline has not responsibility to carry them on that day. If they are ticketed in A and there is no A, or D and only Y then they travel in Y as per the fare rules for AONEx fares, with no compensation paid. If there are no seats on the flight, they can be booked on the next available flight that does have seats, even if it is three weeks later. That is the risk with an open ticket.

BUT if the airline no longer flies the route for which an open dated ticket is held, the airline has to get the pax to the ticketed destination within the validity period of the ticket, not on any specific date (it is an open dated ticket) unless the ticket holder had made a dated reservation for that route which was originally purchased as open dated.

So the only time this may be an issue is right at the end of the validity of the RTW ticket. The OneWorld Explorer and Global Explorer fares are valid for 12 months, Circle Pacific fares are valid for 6 months. If the open dated sector cannot be accommodated with a seat (in any cabin per the fare rules) before the end of the fare validity, there may be a responsibility under these tariff rules to get the pax to the next destination. However, that would only be a reality for the last sectors of the fare, since any subsequent coupons will have the validity date and the coupons must be used in order.

So if, say coupon number 5 or 20 is open dated on a route no longer operated by the carrier, they could leave it until the very last day of the entire ticket validity to get you to the destination shown on coupon 5. Now you have a problem with the validity of coupons 6-20 which all expire on the same date! This is the passenger's risk with an open dated ticket. The carrier for coupon 5 has met their obligation. The fact that coupons 6-20 are now expired is not their problem.

And having a dated reservation for coupon 6 does not change the validity of coupon 5, nor the obligation of the carrier for coupon 5 to get you to the origin of coupon 6 by that date if coupon 5 is open dated. Again, the risk of open dated tickets is with the ticket holder. My recommendation is to make a dated reservation as soon as you know the dates - you can change dates, flight numbers and carriers at any time (for all but the first international sector) for no charge. And if you have a dated reservation, the carrier is obliged to carry you on that date to that destination, and you are protected by the tariff rules as well as most travel insurance policies. With open dated tickets you remove some of that protection. Of course, travel delays due to weather etc reduce of remove the carrier's liability.

Thanks for the clear and detailed explanation, NM.

Fascinating. Delta-specific but I think you'll find Rule 80 from
page 45 onwards, here. And British Airways equivalent (no mention of Rule 80 per se). Rule 240 may be for domestic travel, Rule 80 for international travel judging by this twitchy AA travel agents' advice.

[Edited for additional link]