Yes, but as with everything on FT, discussions evolve, and that is how it became a discussion about taxes.

And as has been previously pointed out, changing a transit to a stopover is clearly a routing change, and a reissue fee is correct.

Happy to have cleared this up.

Dave

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You may be happy but you are wrong.

I have made this change multiple times and no airline (BA/AA or CX) considers this cause for a reissue fee or even a route change. Real world scenario's prove you're wrong.

Happy to have cleared this up.

Henk

If you are still confusing recalculation of taxes with a reissue fee I am willing to elaborate.

No, they don't prove anything other than BA/AA/CX's [alleged] willingness to violate ticketing/re-issue rules for reasons, such as those mentioned by Bukhara earlier on.

In turn, such a violation can either lead to (a) another [technical] violation by check-in agents in accepting such tickets, or (b) denied boarding, at the discretion of the check-in agent, who may or may not share the views of the 1st agent.

Sorry, but YOU are wrong. Changing a transfer to a stopover is indeed a rerouting.

As an example (and this can be altered to any variables you wish to nominate) LAX-x/JFK-LHR is the same as LAX-LHR, but merely transitting via JFK. The routing is LAX-LHR. Changing the JFK from a transfer to a stopever changes the routing, it becomes, instead of LAX-LHR, LAX-JFK plus JFK-LHR - totally different routing.

I am NOT confusing the issue of taxes, and I am aware that re-routing causes taxes to be reassessed..

What I am saying is that changing a stopover to a transit SHOULD NOT cause the fare to be reassessed, but changing a transit to a stopover MIGHT cause it to happen, due to taxes.

Dave

Well, I can only say that the AA RTW desk disagrees with you, AA Mindpearl disagrees, BA RTW disagrees with you, my BA RTW agent in MRU disagrees with you, CX AMS disagrees, with you, CX HKG has no idea what I am talking about and last but not least I disagree with you.

So we can debate this a very long time but the fact remains that I have made this change dozens of times (both ways) and never was a reissue (for $125) required. Not once. So all these agents are idiots and only you two understand or maybe (just maybe) you are wrong.

No you can repeat a million times that you are right but (as I said before) real world scenarios prove you wrong. Unless you are the Managing Director of OW or a specialized agent (and than apparently the only one who understands the rules) I will stick to my own experience with this.

And to elaborate on your example:

If on a xONEx ticket the route would be determined by LHR (xAIRPORT) LAX where the transit is immaterial to the routing than chnaging LHR-xMIA-LAX to LHR-xJFK-LAX would NOT mean a rerouting. Trust me: that IS a rerouting. Your arguments don't make sense.

Try getting CDG-x/LHR-JFK changed to CDG-LHR-JFK by AA, CX, BA, or any of the others you mentioned, without a reissue.

Have fun trying.

Dave

I have changed (on my current DONE4 alone):

BOM-xHKG-DPS to BOM-HKG-DPS
LAX-xDFW-LIR to LAX-DFW-LIR
LIR-xMIA-LHR to LIR-MIA-LHR
DPS-xKIX-HNL to DPS-KIXC-HNL and back again

All without any problem whatsoever. How much more proof do you need?

You can keep telling me I am wrong (and repeating it won't make it more true) but in reality it does not work the way you say. So you maybe right but then you are right in theory only.

EDIT: You are still talking about changes within a One World Explorer ticket right? On a 'regular' ticket (e.g. just CDG-JFK return with a stopover in LHR) changing the transit point would mean a reissue. The discussion is about OneWorld Explorer tickets however.

When I did my Fares & Ticketing courses (run by BA, when I lived in London) AND when I did identical courses during my employment with QF, it was STRESSED that any changes which involved a change of status en-route - and that included changing a transit to a stopover, changing a routing point, etc (but note, NOT changing a stopover to a transit, since a stopover can be less than 24 hours, so a <24hour stopover is the same as a transit) was a reroute and therefore required a ticket reissue.

FWIW, I have had changes involving changing a transit to a stopover, requiring a reissue, where the fees (including taxes) have been explicitly waived (due to a flight cancellation) - if they hadn't cancelled the original flight, it would have been a transit, with the cancellation it became a stopover, thereby incurring additional (real, gummint-imposed) taxes, which AA picked up (even though it was IB that cancelled the flight).

As mentioned above, I was qualified in Fares & Ticketing, and it wasn't that long ago. I really doubt that much has changed, if it has, it would have been broadcast widely, and I would have picked up on it through the various sources that I have access to.

It seems to me that the rules are ambiguous. Because of the ambiguity, with the resulting different ways of interpreting this rule, some airlines are choosing to interpret it one way, others are choosing to interpret it another way. Since it is ambiguous, neither are right, and neither are wrong, until we get a definitive ruling from oneworld as to what is applicable.

Maybe this is one for the Questions for OW thread which is a stickie at the top of the forum?

Dave

xONEx as e-tickets are relatively new, so maybe that has changed?

(Although I did this with my paper tickets as well, so I can't really imagine it.)

For what it's worth my experience (probably 3 or 4 occasions over the years) matches everyone else's, not henkybaby's.

What - exactly - is that "experience"?

There appear to be 2 issues at play (as far as I can determine). These issues are being discussed only in the context of xONEx tickets -

1. Does changing a transit to a stopover (or vice-versa) require the ticket to be re-issued?

2. Does changing a transit to a stopover (or vice-versa) require you to pay the $125 change fee in the xONEx rules?

For 1., I couldn't care less whether the airline wants to 're-issue' the ticket, whatever that means. I fully understand that changing a transit to a stopover (or vice versa) may change the taxes and therefore I may have to pay the difference (or get/waive a refund). I would not deal with an airline that wants to dream up and charge me a 'fee' for 're-issuing' a ticket.

For 2., the answer clearly has to be "no". The xONEx rules, under the heading "Rebooking/Rerouting" clearly state:

(2) After Departure
(a) Date/time/oneworld carrier/inventory changes are permitted provided ticketed points remain the same.
(b) Changes other than to Date/time/oneworld carrier/inventory permitted at a charge of USD125.00 per transaction.

How anyone can interpret that wording to say you have to pay the $125 change fee simply to change a transit to a stopover is beyond me. If I have 2 coupons that take me from A to B and B to C and I change the date and/or time of the flights -- but still go from A to B on the first coupon and B to C on the second coupon -- the xONEx rules clearly state that is allowed and does not require payment of the $125 fee. How anyone can come to a contrary conclusion, based on the published xONEx rules, is beyond me.

My experience matches all the others in that changing a transit to a stopover has always constituted a reroute and hence a reissue. That has been the case for the 10 years or so that I have been using OneWorld Explorers, using multiple issuing anr reissuing airlines. Having said that I have only done this on paper tickets where the ticket needs to be reprinted showing the changed information. My current AONE3 is the first time I have failed to avoid eticketing and the situation hasn't arisen on that one.

Well, all I can say is that either I have been incredibly lucky with multiple airlines and agents or that maybe you always use the same agent (or office) and got stiffed.

And again: when you say reissue you mean you actually paid the $125,- every time, right?

Also not true! Who has been advising you?? They simply put stickers on the flight coupon that has been changed at the airport. That is by the way also the 'give away'. With a paper ticket you have TWO coupons for a transit connection on different flight numbers. (e.g. LHR-xBKK-HKG is two (2) coupons).

I honestly think you have been very poorly advised.