SusanDK

I'm in a slight panic and wonder if anyone can advise.

My husband and I have roundtrip J (Business) tickets booked on SK departing late May, routing is MCO-EWR-CPH with the domestic connections on UA.

We've just learned that his father may not survive the night and we will have to rebook our flight to a departure within this week. Our BusinessSmart J tickets allow rebooking without a fee, but we will have to pay any fare difference.

I'm trying to look for possible options, but no matter what dates I enter on the SK website (departing anytime between Mar 30 - Apr 5, returning after a couple of weeks or up to six weeks), the only flights the SK website will return for me are itineraries via either JFK or BOS, with the domestic connections on DL or B6. I'm aware of the imminent change from Star Alliance to Sky Team, however, the TATL flights on both those itineraries are on narrow body jets.

When I do a query on ExpertFlyer, and filter on SK, it is showing the usual options of flights via EWR, IAD or ORD with connections on UA and the TATL flights on the 350's and 330's. I want one of those.

Why won't the SK website return these options? According to ExpertFlyer, there is some availability throughout the period I'm searching. I realize I'll have to call SK eventually, but at this point I'm trying to do the required research to find the possible flights that we could rebook to with the minimum fare difference.

CPH-Flyer

I'd suggest to find the routings you want and call SK. However, the cheaper filed fares may be the DL and B6 ones, so while SK may be able to book you on UA operated flights out of MCO, there may be a more significant additional fare necessary. Either call, or get someone with a GDS access to check for you.

SusanDK

Thank you. I didn’t want to call until we knew a bit more about the dates we needed to travel. The fare difference from what we have to what is visible on SK’s website now is astronomical, even switching to the JFK or BOS connection. Right now I’m just trying to research date pairs and I’ve spent hours doing so and haven’t had the EWR, IAD nor ORD connections show up once on SK’s website despite them showing on ExpertFlyer. And EF does not show the JFK/BOS routings unless I specifically type in one of those airports as a connecting airport. I’ll continue trying to resolve this tomorrow.

CPH-Flyer

Looking at the availability for MCO CPH vs EWR CPH for the remaining days of this week, there seems to be a married segment logic that limits availability. I don't know what it means for pricing, but you could check if gives a more reasonable price, plus better availability, to change the ticket to EWR-CPH-EWR-MCO and then buy a MCO EWR ticket on UA. There are of course drawbacks, no protection for missed connection, UA is a bit hit or miss on checking through luggage. But it might give you more options.

SusanDK

I just thought I'd provide an update in case anyone is interested.

My FIL is being moved to hospice care so we wanted to change our BusinessSmart ticket to an earlier departure but retain our original return date. I was unable to get pricing on the SK website for any of the EWR, IAD or ORD routings so called this morning to ask about the rebooking, assuming that we'd have to pay a fare difference.

The very helpful agent looked at our ticket and said that there had been a schedule change back in December, by only 30 minutes, consequently, he was able to change our flight once at no rebooking fee or fare change. He changed our outbound to MCO-ORD-CPH for next week, retaining our original return, with absolutely no cost to us! We were flabbergasted and so grateful. I had actually been made aware of the schedule change back in December but had no reason at that time to request a change.

fassy

Well, seems you were luck to get an agent with heart and brain!

Pretty sure he bend the rules a bit here… but under the circumstances the right thing to do!

Awesome customer service.

SusanDK

CPH-Flyer

Good to hear that it worked out so well.