Why buy a flexi/business class domestic flight when some connections are not eligible to change without a fee?

[hisnhers]

Apologies if this is in the wrong area, but it looked like the most appropriate? Admins, please change if so.

So I recently had to book flights to the Sunshine Coast from Canberra. As this is for work, I booked business class flights with Virgin so that if there was a change in plans, I wouldn't need to pay extra to move dates. When I booked, there was no option to book individual legs, just the trip from CBR to MCY via SYD and back again the same way. I knew that the CBR to SYD legs were with Link as normal and I knew they didnt have business class but expected that I could still make changes without any charge as the whole ticket was booked as business class.

Which is what happened - the work I was going up for had to change the date for me to come up, so now I had to push my travel dates back a week.

Went onto the Virgin Business Flyer website that I booked the flights on, and saw that I had to call to make the change, which I did. Then I was informed that because there was a leg that was on Link, and because Link only has choice fares and no flexi fares, there would be a $99 charge!

So what's the point of buying flexi/business class flights for the convenience of being able to change or move dates around if you still end up paying because one of the legs has no flexi/business option? Or is there another way to do this that I am not aware of?

 

[nthd_nthd]

Wow. This sucks. I have no input but was surprised of this as well.

 

[bam71]

Just did a dummy booking for that, fare rules do say CBR SYD $99 for reissue. I would never have even checked to be honest..

 

[hisnhers]

Ok so more drama, and its been flat out all week so only time to put this down now.
at 2330 the night before my 7am flight, i received a text message to say my flights to MCY had changed, and now i would flying to Melbourne, then the Sunshine Coast - the kicker being that the melbourne-sunshine coast leg was now on economy! But it meant i got there an hour after my work appointment so it wasnt going to work.
Of course i was asleep, so no way to change flights online when i woke up, so I got myself to the airport as early as possible.
There I was able to ascertain that the SYD-MCY flight was still on, so as long as i could get myself there by boarding time (8:35am) i would make my appointment. I had two Qantas choices - onearriving at 8:30am and one at 840am. Naturally I chose the earlier one.

Well, that got delayed for 30minutes, so now, I would only arrive at 9am for a 9:05am takeoff!! Not happening. (ironically, the later flight i could have taken was on time!)

So now i had to go back out to the main airport, cancel my SYD-MCY leg, book another flight from SYD-MCY with Qantas that was leaving at shortly after, while almost missing the CBR-SYD flight. I cant run with a recent ACL surgery, so only just made that flight. To say i was stressed was putting it mildly.

After all that, the contractor at work had made a mistake,and so the inspection i was flying up for was not even going ahead.

And my flight out of MCY was delyed for 30minutes as well. At least i got to fly business that i had booked and use the lounge in Sydney.

So again, whats the point of booking business, when they will just downgrade you to ecomony to move things around when flights cant go ahead!!