Changes to *A Awards Without Incurring Additional Miles after 3-Feb-2014
 

I thought it would be helpful for other FTers if we can provide examples of successful changes to *A awards booked before devaluation without incurring additional miles under the new award chart.

Without any official word and confused by all the assumptions made in the other thread, I was under the impression that changes in routing would trigger the new award chart. Apparently not.

Today I was successful in changing the following:


Original Routing: FRA-YVR-SFO
Original Carrier/Class: LH/F, UA/F

New Routing: FRA-MUC*-SFO
Carrier/Class: LH/I (intra-Europe), LH/F

Rubber duckies here I come!

Whoa. So that involved a carrier change, too? Presumably YVR-SFO was UA/AC before and they're now not on the ticket at all. How much hassle? I was just shot down on rerouting IAD-ORD-NRT-SIN to IAD-NRT-SIN with NRT-SIN on UA in both and the TPAC sector on NH for both.

Here are two other examples buried in that thread:



I have a proprietary interest in this because I have an upcoming itinerary BOS-FRA-BKK-HKG (LH J, LH F, TG F) and will be trying to move the LH J portion to LH F. There should be no change in the taxes except for foreign exchange, but later in the trip there is a SQ J segment and I'm hoping that won't cause huge problems with the pricing record.

Thanks for sharing with us, can you give us more detail? Like original carrier/cabin, new carrier/cabin.

I have BKK-FRA-LHR-YYZ (TG F, LH I, AC I) booked in Nov, would be great if I can change to BKK-FRA-YYZ (TG F, LH F) at T-14 days, looks like is possible?

Was this done online change flight button or by phone?

I too am curious about people's success with changes. I have an itinerary next January of
HKG-BKK in TG I
BKK-FRA in TG O
FRA-LIS in LH I
LIS-EWR in TAP I

Am hoping to be able to change the FRA-LIS-EWR segments to a direct FRA-JFK on LH F at T-10 without incurring an additional miles fee.

Excellent idea for this thread. I think it will be very helpful. My data points so far.

US>JPN OW non-stop in F on NH. Successfully changed date and flight but on the same route.

HKG>BKK>HND RT in C/F on TG. Successfully changed date (nothing else) on the outbound.

In both cases, agent at first said it would require more miles. I politely asked the agents to double check and both came back and said they could do it with no extra miles. Took about 20 minutes both times.

Thanks for the data point.

Great idea for this thread. I really hope it will be limited to actual reports of what happened when efforts were made to change an itinerary, as opposed to yet more of these endless questions about what might happen if someone tries to change xyz itinerary.

Yes. YVR-SFO was on UA.

No hassle at all. I called and said I needed some assistance because I don't understand the new rules. I told the agent that I see space on the MUC-SFO flight and rather than fly FRA-YVR-SFO would it be possible to fly FRA-MUC-SFO without incurring additional miles. She said she thought it would be possible but wanted to confirm that she should change it only if there was no additional mile requirement. It took 17 minutes on hold and it was confirmed and emails received for both of us on two separate PNRs

Updated the first post but:

Original routing: LH F FRA-YVR connecting to UA F YVR-SFO
New routing: LH I FRA-MUC connecting to LH F MUC-SFO


It does look similar to what I did, but did they charge you full F miles all the way?

I called.

Yes. The intent is to show successful changes. By example others can see what is possible. Please feel free to post your successful changes to itineraries booked prior to February 3 and changed after February 3.

Yes, it's a North America to Asia RT trip in F, I already paid F miles, so IMO this could work...any way let's wait until November...:D

IMO we should set up a wiki to gather all successful changes instead of shut people's mouth.

Great idea! Have at it! I'm still too jet lagged to wrap my brain around it right now. :D:D

My Two Successful Changes
 

With a saver first award from WAS to BKK booked before 1 FEB, I was able to change the following flights for the same dates:

IAD-UA Y>YUL-LH f > MUC to IAD-LH F> FRA-LH C > MUC

and

FCO-LH C > FRA-UA F to FCO-LH C > FRA-LH F > IAD

There was no mileage change required, though there were some issues with recalculating the taxes, but the agent worked it all out and knew the new rules.

Thanks for sharing, seems like we can change anything (carrier/cabin/route) as long as the original and destination zone remain same, excellent news!

It was always an F award, so I believe you can only change to the same or a lower cabin and not to a higher cabin in order to not trigger a re-price

I was holding my breath the change would go through, but the 1K agent was great!