Changing flight date - airline or website?

lad22

Hello, 

Can anyone help me? Before I bought my flight from London to South Africa via Rwanda, I called RwandaAir and they told me that if I wanted to change the return date I would just have to pay a small fee and then the cost of any difference between the date I want to fly and the date on the ticket. I then bought a ticket from a website.

When I called RwandAir recently to change the ticket, they told me that I had to contact the travel agent. I emailed the website, and they are saying it will cost almost the same amount of money as the original ticket! When I said I was flexible on the date and asked when it would be cheaper between now (March) and June (when I'm currently flying) to change it to, they claimed there was no difference whatever day I flew! This makes no sense, as the price is usually different every day.

Also, they suggested I buy a new ticket from Joburg to Kigali and just use the 2nd part of the ticket in June (from Kigali to London) - but I understood that airlines wouldn't let you use parts of tickets, eg, you can't decide to travel overland and just use the second leg of a flight which has a stopover.

Is anyone able to enlighten me as to whether it is the airline or website which has to help me by law, and whether or not what the website is saying is likely to be true? If not, what can I do? 

Many thanks! 

eskbanker

If you initially discussed your requirements with the airline but then went and bought your ticket through an agent then it's entirely possible that you didn't end up with exactly the same fare code, so you need to check exactly what the conditions are with the ticket you actually ended up with, rather than what the airline had originally been discussing with you.

You're completely in the agent's hands regarding what changes you can make to your arrangements and how much they'll cost, so you need to familiarise yourself with the terms under which you booked and take it from there.  I'd agree with your caution about the likelihood of ticket cancellation if missing out a leg though....