Travel decision
Argggggh! I decided to change flights. Here's what went wrong:
I had decided to look what other flights were available at nearby airports. Results came up with a pleasant surprise: XYD, the code for Lyon Part-Dieu train station. I totally forgot that Continental's still in an alliance with SNCF, the French train system and considers these train trips flights. Not wanting to waste time, I did a power search on ITA and discovered the following itinerary: leaving a day earlier with an outbound "flight" by train to Paris CDG and then a nonstop flight CDG to EWR. Return the same day as originally planned, via Frankfurt on a CO codeshare with Lufthansa. Best part about it: $230 cheaper, which would offset the change fee and still give me a refund! It seemed perfect, since I wouldn't have baggage issues, I'd satisfy the NSF's all US coded flights requirement (technically), I'd spend an extra day with my parents, I wouldn't increase travel time, and I'd be doing the environment a favor by taking the train. The only downside is I wouldn't get enough for Platinum, but oh well.
So I called up Continental with the exact itinerary in hand. Like pirate_artist predicted, talking on the phone with a rep took almost 50 minutes. First, she had a little trouble finding the train route in her system, but got it and quoted the right price back at me. I was all ready to switch when she mumbled some fine print she was reading and said "hold on" because she had to check the restrictions with the fare pricing people. She came back about 5 minutes later and said there was an issue. My previous tickets, being non-refundable, had the restriction that any ticket I exchanged them for would cost me the same price or more, meaning I wouldn't get a refund on the difference. I'd also still have to pay the $163 change fee. She recommended that she bump up the fare class on the itinerary so that the value was just $50 less than my original itinerary -- it wouldn't make a difference to me now, but if I had to change it again in the future the ticket would be worth more. So, no refund for me, but I decided that I'd probably end up spending $163 with AF on luggage anyway, so I went ahead with the switch for $163.
Except.... the woman got concerned about something else and put me on hold. She came back 5 minutes later saying that she's worried about the wording for the train segment, which says "5 days advance purchase". She had to talk to her superiors about it and put me on hold for almost 20 mins. She apologized profusely and then explained. SNCF requires these tickets to be issued in paper form and they need 5 days' notice to issue them. They cannot do tickets that are picked up at the train station with these tickets. If she had gone ahead with the ticket change, I would have arrived at the train station Monday morning and discovered I didn't have a ticket. She said she could go ahead and reissue all the rest of the ticket and I could buy the train ticket myself... but that really didn't seem worth it to me and so I stuck with my original AF itinerary. I thanked her sincerely for her attention to detail, because I almost backed myself into a big hole there.
And why am I not surprised that fucking French bureaucratic efficiency ended up voiding this perfect resolution???
I had decided to look what other flights were available at nearby airports. Results came up with a pleasant surprise: XYD, the code for Lyon Part-Dieu train station. I totally forgot that Continental's still in an alliance with SNCF, the French train system and considers these train trips flights. Not wanting to waste time, I did a power search on ITA and discovered the following itinerary: leaving a day earlier with an outbound "flight" by train to Paris CDG and then a nonstop flight CDG to EWR. Return the same day as originally planned, via Frankfurt on a CO codeshare with Lufthansa. Best part about it: $230 cheaper, which would offset the change fee and still give me a refund! It seemed perfect, since I wouldn't have baggage issues, I'd satisfy the NSF's all US coded flights requirement (technically), I'd spend an extra day with my parents, I wouldn't increase travel time, and I'd be doing the environment a favor by taking the train. The only downside is I wouldn't get enough for Platinum, but oh well.
So I called up Continental with the exact itinerary in hand. Like pirate_artist predicted, talking on the phone with a rep took almost 50 minutes. First, she had a little trouble finding the train route in her system, but got it and quoted the right price back at me. I was all ready to switch when she mumbled some fine print she was reading and said "hold on" because she had to check the restrictions with the fare pricing people. She came back about 5 minutes later and said there was an issue. My previous tickets, being non-refundable, had the restriction that any ticket I exchanged them for would cost me the same price or more, meaning I wouldn't get a refund on the difference. I'd also still have to pay the $163 change fee. She recommended that she bump up the fare class on the itinerary so that the value was just $50 less than my original itinerary -- it wouldn't make a difference to me now, but if I had to change it again in the future the ticket would be worth more. So, no refund for me, but I decided that I'd probably end up spending $163 with AF on luggage anyway, so I went ahead with the switch for $163.
Except.... the woman got concerned about something else and put me on hold. She came back 5 minutes later saying that she's worried about the wording for the train segment, which says "5 days advance purchase". She had to talk to her superiors about it and put me on hold for almost 20 mins. She apologized profusely and then explained. SNCF requires these tickets to be issued in paper form and they need 5 days' notice to issue them. They cannot do tickets that are picked up at the train station with these tickets. If she had gone ahead with the ticket change, I would have arrived at the train station Monday morning and discovered I didn't have a ticket. She said she could go ahead and reissue all the rest of the ticket and I could buy the train ticket myself... but that really didn't seem worth it to me and so I stuck with my original AF itinerary. I thanked her sincerely for her attention to detail, because I almost backed myself into a big hole there.
And why am I not surprised that fucking French bureaucratic efficiency ended up voiding this perfect resolution???