Update - any attempt to clarify this 'issue' through the head office in Hanoi has been met with a strange inability to speak English...

You must write complain to GM
Airport staff, they were cheated with you
Actually, there are no D-fare on domestic flight
Business class fare of VNA domestic flight is always C, for international flight are D or J
Even Y fare permitted to change flight free of charge, not talking about C class
You can fill the complain in flight, just ask flight attendant to bring the form.
Brgds./.

Got a name to address the letter to?

There is D and C class on VN domestic. I have just booked a RTN HAN-DAD and the booking site only offers the cheapest fare so again I have C one way and D the other.

The site, rules and eticket still say they are changeable without penalty.

I wouldn't worry too much about the class of travel, airlines sell out one class then move into another. I use the free and easy fares, available to residents and they are cheap. If you are still have a problem with them, call into 25 Trang Thi Street in hanoi or get the concierge at your hotel to sort it out. I had a problem getting the VN flights which I use a lot, credited to my Garuda FFP, but they sorted it all out, I find them good to deal with

Sorry to hear of your frustrations on your earlier journey.

I'm sure you're aware of this, but AFAIK for all airline tickets, the rules about changes apply within the same booking class. I can only find fare rules for C domestic, not D, but I understand that D is a lower class than C. So, if you had a D-class ticket, and wanted to change to a flight that only had availability in C-class, you would have to pay the fare difference between D and C (on a half round-trip basis). You would not be paying a 'penalty' (as you would have to if you were changing a cheaper, non-fully-flexible economy ticket) but you would still have to pay the fare upgrade.

Obviously, I don't know whether D was available on the flight you were previously trying to change to (in which case, it seems you should have been able to change free of charge), or whether only C was available (in which case , the request to pay the difference between D and C would presumably have been legitimate).

I would agree it is confusing that this isn't stated explicitly in the fare rules, but I guess it's a hang-over from the days when all bookings were made by travel agents, and it was assumed that all travel agents knew these things. If this was indeed the problem, it is also unfortunate that no-one was able to clearly explain it that way at the time.

Fully understand fare rules, that is why I have prefaced all of this with what their own fare rules state on their web-site and on my eticket. No difference in flight change rules for C and D.

http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e1...Nfarerules.jpg

Yes - but those rules only apply within the same booking class. If you're booked in D-class, and want to change to another flight that has availability in D, there's no charge. However, if the other flight only has availability in C (which is a higher class), you need to pay the difference in fare between D and C.

It is not a 'change fee', but an upgrade from one booking class to another.

I understand, and given two of the three available flights went out with 0 load in J at all, I would have thought it safe to assume there was availability.

Recall, I was originally told I would have to cancel my ticket and rebook a whole new one, which then changed to the web-site is mistaken, D class cannot change without paying a fee - ever.

The staff are incompetent or dishonest, they elected to go with incompetent.

Hi, I will live in Ho CHi Minh city as an expat for 3 or 4 years expecting a bunch of internal trips in Vietnam airlines . From what Ive heard they are not so good and their FFP seems terrible they dont even properly describe it in their very basic website. I am Skyteam gold with Aeromexico, but wont fly them again due to the fact that im so far away. aside from work travel in Vietnam i will fly to LAX and possibly MAD and LIM. You guys have some advice on what FFP to credit my miles in VN airlines? thanks guys. R.