Award Copayment Question

[NoName]

I have noticed that the copayment for award flights is more expensive if booked as two one ways than of booked return on the one ticket. As an example a quick search of BNE-LAX gives AUD427.96 in Y booked as a return while booked as two one ways I get AUD248.83 + USD383.89 which works or around AUD300 more.

My question is if I have two one ways can I call up and combine them into one booki and recalculate the copayment to the lower amount?

My specific situation is a series of booking made by a WP relative for myself and my wife. We have ended up with 3 seperate award bookings:

- Me MEL-LAX in F
- Wife BNE-SYD-LAX-JFK in mix of J/F
- Both of us LAX-BNE in Y

Credit card not fully processed yet but looks like it had been charged around $2100.

Can I ring and ask them to change this into two bookings as follows:
- Me MEL-LAX & LAX-BNE
- Wife BNE-JFK & LAX-BNE

And if so will they recalculate the copayment? I'm quite sure if it had have been booked this way originally it would have been significantly less $$.

 

[There'sOnlyOneJimmy]

Have you done the exercise of doing dummy bookings for your revised routes to see what the copayments come out at?
That would give you a pretty good indication if it was worthwhile pursuing...

 

[NoName]

Can't do a dummy booking in the same class of travel as I can't see anything available but when done in Y the amount per person difference is approx as my original BNE-LAX example. $300ish per person. Well worth pursuing I would think.

 

[deejo77]

Would they have to cancel the tickets? then you pray they go back into inventory and then rebook?

I would say it has been done this way to jump on the tickets available on the way over - then they had to wait to ticket the return.

I wouldn't risk a cancel and rebook even at $300.

 

[NoName]

Would they have to cancel the tickets? then you pray they go back into inventory and then rebook?

I would say it has been done this way to jump on the tickets available on the way over - then they had to wait to ticket the return.

I wouldn't risk a cancel and rebook even at $300.

The F flights were requests from a WP so wouldn't go back into inventory. Cancelling isn't an option I don't think. It's only if they can somehow join it into 1 booking for each passenger.

I could always cancel the inbound booking (with both of us in it) as there is still 2 seats in Y available. Might call tomorrow and try.

 

[esseeeayeenn]

Worth a try. Good luck. I wouldn't be too hopeful because it would probably be difficult to do and there is nothing in it for them.
However, you might strike upon someone who dedicates themselves to excellence in customer service. (/sarcasm)

 

[NoName]

Just got off the phone to QF about this and the gentleman on the phone was able to assist with relative ease. He ended up cancelling the one way return flight for both of us (LAX-BNE in Y) and added on this flight to the individual bookings for the flight from AUS-US.

Result was a net refund of just under $700 on the copayment with cancellation, change & phone assistance fees waived. An excellent result and a big thanks to John in the Hobart call centre for his help.

Not sure about all routes but I have also noticed the same thing on flights to/from Singapore. If anyone has made two one way award bookings instead of a return booking is may well pay to see if they can be joined together as copayment on a return seems significantly cheaper. Whether it's a system error I'm not sure but a big difference nonetheless.