Planning: the long way home…

After confirming with Gina, my niece, that I could change the return ticket on our group tickets so that I could stay longer in Africa, I had the wonderful experience of trying to do that tonight. First, I called United Airlines, because Gina had booked the package with them (Star Alliance – South African Airways). United’s customer service representative was very kind and very helpful, quoted me all the ins and outs of making the change, and then told me I’d have to actually make the change with South African Airways.

So I called South African Airways, and sure enough, everything is fine, I can change the return, the flight I want back is available at the same fare as the original return ticket, and the extra cost is more than the entire cost of the original round trip ticket! Huh??? What am I missing here? It turns out that they can’t simply change the return ticket (at this time). They’d have to cancel the entire ticket, then rebook the entire itinerary, and the fare class that was used for the entire itinerary is not available. Now you’d think that if I give up a seat in class X, there’d be a seat available in class X, right? Wrong. That’s not the way the airlines work. Now after I use the outbound ticket, they might consider letting me change the return ticket for a more reasonable price, but of course there’s no guarantee then that there’d be a seat on the flight I want. And no guarantee it’d be priced reasonably. And I do have this boss who has this odd idea that if he’s going to pay me, I should actually show up and work for him. Which means I really do have to be back in the office on Monday June 23. So I have got to be sure I can get home.

Back online, checking all the various options, and I figure the safest way to handle this is to buy a fully refundable one way ticket on Delta (Johannesburg-Atlanta-Newark). That way, if I CAN change my original return ticket, I’ll simply cancel the Delta ticket and get the refund. On the other hand, if I CAN’T change the original ticket, I’ll still get home on time. Poorer in the short run, but richer in the long run (especially since it means I’ll keep my job).

Sigh… this stuff ain’t easy…

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