Rules when refaring to a higher class?
 

I am 2p, but my wife and son are not. With the companion rule, i know my wife OR son can get an E+ seat, but not both of them. We are on an S fare.

I confirmed with the 2p desk that E/M/U fare classes get E+ seating. So, i am trying to refare my son or wife from S into U.

I called the 2p and reached a CSR out of the India call center. She said:
1. the U class fare is 860.
2. that i would have to break my wife (or son)'s ticket out into a separate ticket.
3. that the new ticket would be refared into the higher 'U' class.
4. I would have to pay the difference from the earlier S to the U fare PLUS a change fee of 100$

Is this right? From reading this forum on FT, i was under the impression that when the target fare is a higher fare class, there is no change fee?

That only applies to international tickets. Domestic refares get the change fee.

The change fee can also apply to international tickets as well. You have to look at the fare rules for your specific ticket.

It seems as though everything the RSSR said was correct. Assuming its a domestic ticket, you have to pay the fare difference and the change fee and the PNR will have to be split if you want to re-fare (and I believe reissue) your son's ticket and book it in U class. Obviously, no one can tell you if she was correct in telling you the different was $860, because you didn't give enough information, but it I believe it is quite possible on many routes for the difference between S and U to be quite a bit.

Some more info, since my initial post was a bit sketchy.

The fare was for a SFO-BOS-ORD-SFO rt around the 4th of July weekend. From looking at ita, i expect the fares to be in that range (800+) in U.

I can't get My Itins to cough up the fare rules for all legs. The first leg's fare basis is SE141NNX. Being a cheap S fare, i expect to pay the 100$ change fee.

Edited to add:
I tried looking up the fare rules via Travelocity
but that wouldn't yield the rules for the SE141NNX. The closest it gave me was the VE141NNX fare rules. Let me dig into that.