Help trying to change trailfinders flight

[Woof]

We are over in Australia for a few months and originally had planned to fly back to Ireland in Feburary, however we wanted to bring this forward to around Christmas or New Years. We were instructed by Trailfinders that we had to go into the Qantas office and change it with the airline themselves, but we were told that we could change the flights subject to availability, (We were also told when we made the booking that it would be no problem to make date changes on these fligts). Following this we went into the office where a girl seemed to be searching through flights but told us that no flights were available until the end of Jan. I found this a bit hard to believe so when I checked online myself I saw that there were numerous availabilities during the dates that we wanted to fly. Does anyone know if there are any restrictions whereby flights which are booked through Trailfinders are subject to certain restrictions when trying to make date changes?

 

[ClubMan]

What do the terms & conditions of you original booking agreement say about changing flights etc.?

 

[Woof]

What do the terms & conditions of you original booking agreement say about changing flights etc.?

Hi thanks for your reply its really appreciated, on the terms and conditions of the booking it says 'once enroute date changes are permitted on your BA/Qantas ticket for EUR75 per change plus a local administration fee', on the actual ticket it says 'date changes permitted within same class'.

 

[Eurofan]

You may find that your fare is booked in a particularly limited fare 'bucket'. There are often more than a dozen levels of fare within economy alone and those that are more restrictive (typically booked early, more cheaply and often through third parties) often have more limited availability.

There may well be seats available in other fare levels within econ but not at the level you bought.

Ring back and ask is it just seats at your fare type that are unavailable and if so how much would it be to 'upgrade' the fare to the next level (note this wouldn't be an upgrade to business which would cost thousands just and upgrade to a more flexable economy fare).

 

[Afuera]

Yeah, it sounds like you've got a really basic fare type which would have very limited availability. Busy time of year to be travelling around the southern hemisphere. As Eurofan said, you might need to upgrade to a different fare type.

Alternatively, if you're travelling on a RTW ticket, it might be possible to reroute your flight (for the same $75 fee, plus any additional airport taxes). I was able to do that myself last year, rerouting the flights with stopovers in Bejing and Helsinki on the way back to Ireland.

If you're travelling on standard return tickets then unfortunately this won't be an option and I think the fare type upgrade would be your only option.