Aer Lingus Flexi Fare

masterK

I was wondering if anybody knows the in's and outs of the Aer Lingus flexi fare. If I book a flight for a certain date can I change it for any other date I want or are there restrictions on what I can change. From reading their website it seems I can. However what doesn't make sense considering I could book a flight for November when the flexifare is low then change it to July when the standard fares are at their highest.

Here is the Aer Lingus Website:
http://www.aerlingus.com/travelinformation/planandbook/flexifare/

Basically I will probably have to take a trip in July but won't know the date until the last minute so was thinking of booking a flexi fare and changing the date when I know when I'll be travelling. If there are no restrictions surely I can just book the cheapest flexifare I can find on my route for any time this year and change it to the date in July I need when I know for sure.

steve-o

It's pretty confusing, even deceptive. Depending on where you look on the website you'll find different answers, because they keep changing the rules.

For changes, the booking page (where you choose your flight and fare) says a fare difference needs to be paid, as does the terms and conditions page (on the page after you choose flights), contradicting what they say in the page you linked.

For cancellations, depending on which page you read, either there is no fee, there's an administration fee (unspecified), or it's 15% of the ticket plus the unspecified admin fee.

I'd go with the terms and conditions page, so you would need to pay the fare difference.

masterK

Thanks for replying. The terms and conditions page states

Date and Time Changes

Date and Time changes allowed free of charge. Change of route will incur any difference in cost between the original price paid and price available at the time the change is being made. However, there will be no refund of the difference in fare should the new fare be of lower value to that of the original fare.
Changes permitted up to 2 hours prior to scheduled departure of flight (or can be made up to departure at the airport)
Changes permitted from same country of origin only
Missed departure fee waived for changes at the airport (on the day of departure only)

This seems to suggest that once you can change the flight free of charge once it's on the same route. It's a bit odd, for the destination I want to go to flights in the next week are around 300 each way, however you can book flexi fares in November for 190 each way on the same route so I can't see anything anywhere on their site that says I can't do this.

steve-o

You are dead right about the terms and conditions (possibly they vary by route, but I doubt it). So the booking page seems to be the only place to mention a fare difference (if you hover your mouse over the flex change fee box).

AFAIK, terms and conditions are what counts, so you should give it a whirl. At the very worst, you can cancel (and even argue for a full refund since the Fees page makes no mention of an admin fee).

tatli_lokma

masterK wrote: »

Thanks for replying. The terms and conditions page states



This seems to suggest that once you can change the flight free of charge once it's on the same route. It's a bit odd, for the destination I want to go to flights in the next week are around 300 each way, however you can book flexi fares in November for 190 each way on the same route so I can't see anything anywhere on their site that says I can't do this.

You can change the flight free of charge - i.e. you won't be charged a admin fee for amending or changing the booking. However you will be charged any difference in fare price. As you have noticed, usually with Aer Lingus, if you book a week or so before the date you want, the fares tend to get quite high. So you can book the flexi fare for November now at 190, but when you try to change it to a date in July there is a good chance that the price will be more than 190 and you will have to pay the shortfall. If for any reason the flight has become cheaper, you won't get a refund and will still have paid 190 for it. In addition, you can only change the flight if there are seats available, which is not guaranteed. Booking for November and then changing to July is not going to save you any money.

It makes sense if you think about it - otherwise people would be booking flights when the discounts are a a maximum, and then cancelling them in order to get high season prices at the discounted price. That wouldn't be very good business sense to allow that.

masterK

It makes perfect sense for them, my problem is that the website can be best described as poor where it comes to explaining it.

This is from their website:

Choose FlexiFare and you can change the date and time of your flight up to two hours before your flight departure without paying a fare differential or change fee

I can't see much of a benefit to a traveler in booking a flexi fare as you will be hit for the difference in flight costs anyway plus you've to pay approx 100 extra for the flexi fare. The only use is if you may need to cancel flights.

BuffyBot

You may need to make multiple changes.

tatli_lokma

masterK wrote: »

I can't see much of a benefit to a traveler in booking a flexi fare as you will be hit for the difference in flight costs anyway plus you've to pay approx 100 extra for the flexi fare. The only use is if you may need to cancel flights.

I think the flexi-fare is mostly utilised by business travellers - a lot of company travel policies stipulate that a changeable fare must be booked.