Be careful if you change a 'budget' flight!

LesD

A funny thing happened to me on my way back from Alicante recently!!!

For various reasons, we have changed a few flights lately, including deferring an outward flight from May to September! However, not unusually, to change the flight would cost more than booking a new flight. So that's what we did.

For other various reasons, we still needed to use the 'return' part of the original booking - returning on Monday 8th May. But when we got to the airport, they told us our booking had been cancelled because we did not use the outbound sector!

The kind gentleman who we originally spoke to when trying to change the flight never told us this!

The moral of the story is....never expect any 'budget' flight changes to be easy. And if you don't need any sector, make sure you phone and specifically cancel it!

(....and it wasn't with that Irish airline - whatever its name is!)

cougar_3

Who were you flying with - I thought that easy jet and friends view return journeys as two one way tickets

richardw

WiseInvestor is correct, it is airline common practice. Perhaps booking single tickets to maintain flexibility is the way to go, especially when the difference is only the credit/debit card charge.

WiseInvestor_2

Most (if not all) airlines - no frills and full service (I don't like the term 'Budget' as the full service airlines are frequently the cheapest!) - will automatically cancel a return sector if the outbound is unused. This is because one sector usually subsidises the other depending on the time of day, booked load etc. Airlines don't want passengers booking 2 'cheapest' returns but only ever planning to use the most expensive sectors, eg:

1) UK - Spain Friday 18:00-20:00 / Spain - UK Monday 23:00-01:00
2) UK - Spain Friday 12:00-14:00 / Spain - UK Monday 06:00-08:00

Here are two ficticious bookings to/from the same airports on the same dates. Both sectors in bold are at peak times being at the start and end of the business day/week but if a passenger is willing to pay the price, they'd effectively get the off-peak FOC. The passenger could therefore travel at peak times (ie. a weekend break) in both directions but pay considerably less than had they booked 2 one-way tickets.

Cougar is correct that 2 one-way tickets are different but you need to shop around to get them cheaper than a return

LesD

WiseInvestor wrote:

the full service airlines are frequently the cheapest!) -

Not BHX-ALC they're not!!!!!!!!!!!!

(It was FlyBE, by the way.)

budgetflyer

5:6 of their terms and conditions

5.6 Cancellation of onward reservations
If you do not show up for any flight without advising us in advance, we will cancel your return or onward reservations. However, if you advise us in advance, we will not cancel your subsequent flight reservations.

http://www.flybe.com/terms/default.htm

Suprised at that one myself

jetboy

The easyjet system doesn't cancel the return if you fail to show for the outbound but each airline has its own res system no the moral of the story would be to 'never assume'

jenniferpa

Most airlines started to do this (cancel return flights if the outbound segment hadn't been used) when it became obvious that business people were circumventing the saturday night rule, (staying a saturday night tends to result in cheaper tickets) because it was cheaper to toss the unused portion than buy 2 one way tickets. In fact, many airlines will cancel the whole reservation if they think you're doing that.

Alfie_E

I’m surprised at any budget airline making an association between flights. When the EU compensation legislation came into force, the first thing the budget airlines did was proclaim that significant parts of it didn’t apply to them, as they never sold return tickets, only singles.

jetboy

the saturday night rule is more applicable to traditional carriers and is touted in their booking conditions. Many (but not all) Low cost operators use their own booking systems which pay no attention to saturday nights, preferring the sector-by-sector booking routine. Clearly not all of them do this. Flybe and Baby are old style airlines who have developed into LCC's hence many of their procedures are left over from the 'good old days'. I would imagine their systems in time will evolve accordingly.

mystic_trev

The Airline standard is that if you haven't flown the outbound "leg" the return is cancelled. I once had a "multi stop" flight with seven flights on it. My second flight Dhaka to Sydney meant changing at Bangkok. The flight arrived late and I missed my connection. I was transfered to a later flight (with a different airline) but hadn't realised (through no fault of my own) all further onward flights had been cancelled!