Visa Notification, and pleasant airline ticket story

March 25 late afternoon we both received an e-mail from the Portuguese consulate informing us that our visa application was approved and authorized. Tomorrow morning I will take the train in to the city and hand-deliver our passports to the VFS office! Typically it takes 4 working days to put the visa sticker in the passport. We have learned to not count on the timing -- don't hold your breath. After all, we applied for the visa last December 4th, and other later applicants already got their visas! And I had purchased a cheaper round-trip ticket, expecting to return to Porto on the 24th of March.

When the visa notification still had not arrived by last Friday, I worried about changing the ticket: what date would I change it to? We cannot be sure when the notification will arrive, and when we will get our passports back. Fortunately, they can suspend the itinerary for successive five-day periods. What a relief! Now we truly will not schedule our flight back until we have the passports + visa sticker in hand.

Details: I purchased our roundtrip ticket on KLM, with a change-fee. When I called FlyingBlue customer service they surprised me by offering to cancel the return schedule and hold the ticket open for 5 calendar days. After that time they will simply cancel the ticket. However, if I call before the 5-day period I can re-schedule the flight and then pay whatever extra fees the computer shows (I presume the change-fee plus the current charge for that flight over my credit for the ticket). Further, if I call before the 5-day period, I can simply ask them to reset the 5-day clock again, multiple times until I am ready to schedule the flight. Final deadline is 1 year after ticket purchase.

However, I did not ask about fees for seat-assignment and checked-baggage, some of which I already paid separately from the original ticket purchase. Will they re-instate those as well?

I assume other airlines would have similar policies -- at least the major airlines. But, as always, Your Mileage May Vary. Any similar stories?

Comments

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