£1460 J - London to LAX/SEA/SFO OneWorld Round Trip...
Apr 11, 2018, 9:00 am
#61
Join Date: Aug 2006
Location: near to SFO and LHR
Programs: BA Gold, B6 Mosiac, VS, AA, DL (and a legacy UA 2MM)
Posts: 2,274
In the vast majority of cases with BA fares, Once the first flight is taken Historical pricing takes place so it would only be the change charge if there is I class availability (otherwise its the enormous mark up to J) Where this becomes complicated is on other airlines such as QR who sell all there sale and promo fares on R class so in those cases unless you have flown first leg AND there is another sale on creating R class you can't change them , I know this is BA in this case but using that as an example.
Apr 12, 2018, 4:43 am
#62
Join Date: Mar 2003
Programs: BA GGL; AA LT Gold; AS 100K; DL MM GM; Hyatt G*list, Hilton Diamond; SQ silver
Posts: 3,806
OK, then I may be misunderstanding what happened to me recently. In January, I bought several LHR-SFO-LHR flights on sale in F at a great price of roughly £2500. On two of the flights, I've had to pay a hefty premium in addition to the change fee to change the return leg, after I'd flown the outbound. Didn't matter what date I changed it to, always several thousand extra fare difference. Of course, with BA hiding the complete fare basis, it's difficult to tell what the fares are based on, beyond the fact that both the new and the old fares were coded as "A".
After flying the outbound of discount J ticket, I asked my TA to change the return, adding a stop in JFK as allowed by the rules. She tries to do the change and to reprice. The reprice works correctly to the same fare but the exchange rate is now more favorable and the resulting price in USD is lower. I'm supposed to only pay the change fee. However, she calls BA and gets to an ICC who says that there is a rule saying the new fare must be higher than the old and thus everything has to be rebooked in the next higher fare in R bucket... $600 more. Though it is true this rule exists, it's really that they shouldn't be refunding in case the reprice comes to a lower fare, and in this case, it's not the fare that's lower, it's the exchange rate.
So I call BS. She gives up but releases control to BA.
I call BA GGL number and get the ICC at that time of night.
Similar story. Agent says it should be just the change fee but the computer gives an error. He says he can do it in the same I booking class but the fare is now higher by $232. That's better but still not right to me... The call gets escalated to the supervisor who has been listening in and is also puzzled.
He says he will escalate to people in UK and asks if I am OK if he charged me the change fee in case the UK resolves this to just the change fee. If not, he says, he'll call me back.
In the end, the ticket was changed with just the change fee.
It is really unfortunate that the airlines have created such s complex system and keep trying to hide more and more the rules and how pricing works (the ICC supervisor would not email me the fare construction details, citing security reasons). So try to know as much as you can before making changes and don't hesitate to stand your ground. Most people in my place would have paid the $600...