You are correct, you can add flights that leave up to a year after the original ticketed departure date. That means if you postpone your original flight it does not extend the validity of the ticket. It would be interesting to see what happens if you subsequently as in flights before your original departure date - could you create an itinerary that lasts over 12 months?
Thank you.
I used to do that for sure - divide 35K miles into 2 trips, having 10month stop over at MEL or somewhere else. Never had an issue with validity due to issuing date, I was able to either add next segment one by one or push it further later dates. 2017/2018, 2019/2020 - at least 2 OWA 35K flown, divided into 2 big trips.
For this instance this is time line and routing:
- Booking completed online in DEC 2023, as per below:
NOV24 KUL-TYO//TYO-ORD//BOS-TYO-SIN
DEC24 SIN-HEL-VIE//MXP-HEL-ICN
- I wanted to push second part of travel to MAR25, so just date change.
Seats are available and agent can see as well.
- While on the phone(...over 3 hours...) new date once appeared in my booking but they couldn't finalize it saying it gives error and it was sent to other end. After lengthy wait it was concluded it is due to issuing date validity issue.
- With all the horror stories losing tickets with attempted changes, obviously I'm scared to lose booking and ticket so didn't push too hard. Unfortunately second attempt came back with same result, I cannot change it to later than DEC24 which is 12 months from initial issuing date.
- I did ask if I change destination and re-issue, it will be valid from new issuing date. Answer was NO, initial issuing date it matters.
I'm debating either I just give up second half of the trip, and keep at least first half or scrap and start all over again. Thing is I already booked location flight(cash) and all for first half, and of course there is no guarantee I will be able to secure first half again if I cancel.
Hope this makes sense - would be grateful if you could give me any tip.