Hi all,

First time poster here. I bought a RT ticket on Continental last week to London (returning July 12). I have just received news that I may have to return a week earlier than expected. I called Continental and they said it would cost $225 to change the ticket which, as a student, I am not in a position to pay. Do you think if I showed up at the ticket counter in London a week before my original return date, say on July 6,and beg, they may be more sympathetic? If there is space on that earier flight, do you think they will be understanding and let me switch flights without charging me the hefty penalty?

P.S. I don't know why, but I imagine that the people at the ticket counters are much nicer in the UK than they are in the US.

Actually - $225 doesn't seem bad to me if you are on a discounted/restricted ticket. Sorry, but some airlines would make you eat the whole thing to make changes.

Sorry to say, those are the rules...
And you have the risk that by then flights will be full...

Without wishing to rub it in, don't expect staff in Britain to interpret the rules any differently from how they'd do it elsewhere.

Employees or agents follow policy as Head Office writes it. It's CO policy they have to follow whether they're at Gatwick or Galveston.

Brits' instinct is often more anarchic. But they want to keep their job.

While it is SOMETIMES possible to take an earlier flight, it is always for the same day of travel as your original ticket, and only if there is room. You have zero to no chance of doing it a week early. Sorry

There's almost certainly nothing to be done, but take a look at the Continental forum at Flyertalk.com and perhaps post a question. I agree you are actually getting off easy with the $225, even if it doesn't seem like it.

It could depend on your reason for changing. I have changed flights on SAS for medical reasons (departing a week later) with no penalty at all.

I sorta think it isn't a medical emergency/death in the family/trip interruption issue - since we are talking about July.

I changed my ticket four months in advance of the trip, so it wasn't a medical "emergency" in the usual sense; just medical "necessity" to accomodate the anticipated effects of radiation treatment. The SAS agents were very understanding, even though it didn't fit within the usual rules.

Thank you all for your help. I was really hoping that the airline reps in the UK would be nicer, but I guess I must admit that money, for better or worse, makes the world go round.

whether the ticket agents are nicer or not has absolutely nothing to do w/ your problem. They may be very sweet and have a smile on their faces - or real dragons who hate people - the answer will still be "no".

I am sorry to burst the bubble or what you had hoped would happen, but when buying any purchase---wether it be a camera or a plane ticket, you have got to read the fine print.

When you get more expensive tickets (which I avoid as well), then you get a little bit more lee-way (sp?) in terms of changing your flight. But usually they tell you right up front what you can and cannot change and how much fo a penalty.

I am sorry about the hassle...that totally sucks.

Ps--the purpose of my above post was to state that is has nothing to do with "money ruling everything", but is more just of a professional manner. Tickets, insurance, contracts, etc. all have rules in fine print to ease any hopeful future problems. Personal issues such as change in plans, etc. cannot be accomodated always, so in order to be fair to all, a set of rules is put in place. Also, it would be a nightmare if people changed flights all the time just because they wanted to....how would a flight know that it is trully full or underbooked?

I do agree that I dislike airlines overbooking.....I think you should not overbook for more than a few people at most....and if you are going to overbook, you should do so only in markets where you have frequent flight..like from SFO to LAX, etc.