When I buy my plane tickets there's often certain things I want such as:
- Ticket valid for 12 months
- No fee for return date changes
- Stopovers in both directions
Now it seems that these days your E-ticket is basically a number. So you get an itinerary that your travel agent prints out with your E-ticket number, some other reference numbers, and some, but not all conditions of your ticket.
From what I know of air tickets there are all manner of codes for all kinds of conditions, including things like in my list above, but they are vastly complicated and don't necessarily map directly to the simple English phrases I used.
My question is How can I check that the ticket I bought actually does have all the things I asked for? What if the agent made a mistake or a wrong assumption or printed the wrong thing on my printout. It's not a printout the airline made after all.
I made sure when booking my ticket to ask multiple times on each point. But I didn't get the agent to put it in writing and sign it.
What just happened:
- My printout says my ticket was valid for 12 months but when I called the local airline office to change the date they didn't think my ticket was valid for a year after all! (It turned out it was a year ticket after all this time.)
- My printout says date changes will cost $75. But the local airline office told me changes are free! (This time luck is on my side.)
- My travel agent only booked my stopover on the way to my destination and not the one on my return flight. They assured me I can change it while I'm travelling with no problem. But the local airline office tells me it's not so simple after all and if it's even possible it will require some fees! (This time luck may be against me.)
How can you make sure all of this stuff is what was promised / what is printed before it bites you?