[clarinet1]

Hi everyone,

I hope I am posting this in the right section.
I booked a return flight via Lastminute the other day with United Airlines (London to Buffalo/New York to London - for October) and then needed to switch the inbound and outbound airports around and change the dates slightly.

They let me change the date, carefully charging me £270 first, of course. I realised I'd omitted to tell them about the airport switch as well so called them back at which point they told me they don't 'as a matter of policy' change destinations on tickets. My ticket is non-refundable.

I have now lost £480, plus the £270 for the alteration fee, so a total of about £760 for a flight I cannot use. I am livid. As I have paid for this flight, I don't see why I simply can't book another one with the right inbound and outbound requirements. They did tell me prior to booking the flight that 'it was non-changeable and non-refundable', but they let me change the dates, so apparently it WAS changeable, but not the destination. They did not explain this. I went ahead, believing it was possible to alter these things as nobody told me otherwise.

Does anyone have any advice to this novice flyer?! It's only my third time on a plane!! (Or at least, I'm hoping to get on a flight....) If I get no joy from lastminute, I'm determined to write to someone higher up if possible, so any addresses would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks for listening,

Claire

[azstar]

You should be able to change the origin and/or destination by paying the applicable airfare, plus any change fee charged by the airline. However, in Europe, many agencies are "bucket shops". They sell tickets at a huge discount (with the covert approval of the airline) and those tickets cannot be changed. Period. If you look at your ticket receipt (the one that has the ticket number, travel dates, and fare class) and if it says "NO FARE" or "BT" or does not have a fare, tax, and total amount you are probably out of luck. I would take it to the airline office and they should be able to tell you.

[clarinet1]

Thanks for your reply azstar.

I only have an e-ticket, and on that, under 'fare,' it reads: 'economy restricted.'

Re taking it to the airline office, where do I find their address or number? I went online and found this?

http://www.united.com/web/en-US/cont...r/default.aspx

Ah....editing this as just seen another bit of the e-ticket that says under air fare: 'not available.' Is that what you meant?

[azstar]

You should have received a receipt with a 10 digit ticket number starting with 016 (for UA). On that receipt it should have "fare" XXX.00 GBP followed by various taxes. You might have received a paper receipt, or a copy of the ticket, from the agency with the same information. If there is no GBP value or amount, your ticket is probably only valid for the dates/flights you originally purchased.

[clarinet1]

Thanks for the info, Azstar, very helpful