Royal Jordanian “Schedule Change”

[Clem Fandango]

I’m starting to think our trip to Jordan is mildly cursed.

RJ have just emailed me of a “schedule change” of an internal flight from AMM to AQJ. What they’ve actually done is moved the four of us from the nicely timed afternoon flight (16:45) to the annoying very early morning (07:00). New flight number, of course.

Do I have any comeback here? This was booked as part of one itinerary LHR/AMM (6 day pause) AMM/AQJ (7 days) AQJ/AMM/LHR. Adding the internal flight reduced the overall price but we don’t really need it – we could drive instead.

Weirdly both flights are still available on google flights at exactly the same price.

I think BA has a policy here on >8hour changes but is that a BA thing or a Oneworld thing? Can’t find anything on RJ policy.

TIA

[Lady London]

As you’ll know Clem EU261 won’t cover you (I think) due to it not being a connecting flight with an origin in Europe/UK. If the time between that and the previous flight had been 23hrs 59min or less you would have full rights to refuse/reroute.

It sounds like they are doing one of 2 things :

Either (1) the flight is still running and they’re offloading you. This could be because they’ve overbooked, or want to sell your booked seats to someone else. Either because the Aquaba football team has made it through to a final held at the home ground that day, so they think they can sell your seats for more, or because a bigger group than they’ve got seats for wants to book and not enough seats till they offload you. If an airline offloads you it appears to you as a flight cancellation.

Or (2) the flight is really cancelled but their systems haven’t caught up yet. Or, they want to keep taking money for bookings on a flight they’re keeping in the schedule looking like it’s running. Then they will mess passengers around and either force them onto other (probably less desirable) flights or keep their money for ages or practically, even completely avoid refunding.

I’m beginning to think this may be a tactic indulged in particularly by Middle Eastern airlines – Qatar and their reschedules landing people with 2.00am flights they’d never have booked, or changing an OK 2-hour layover to a 9 hour one in Doha (now without access to a decent lounge for anyone who bought a “discounted” Business Class ticket) quite frequently, come to mimd.

If you can drive I would do so (but watch out for any one way rental drop charges) and I would call them (or BA if that’s who ticketed it) and try to stay on the flight pointing out it’s still being sold [good for a wind-up] and if that’s not working tell them to delete that flight which they should willingly do. And there should be no hint of any extra cost to you.

I’d be more worried about the Aquaba-Amman flight being messed around too. Take a squizz at their timetables and work out if this looks likely amd seek reassurances.

Forget if the routing you got was cheaper. Any sector dropped may well have a partial value assigned to it which you can give them a little run-around about having reimbursed to you.

[Clem Fandango]

@Lady London, thanks for this and yes I did know there’s no Eu/uk261 in this case (although I’m guessing that all the other flights are covered).

Since posting this, RJ have sent another email saying that:

‘Please note that your below flight between Amman and Aqaba on the 07th April at 1645 will not be operating, we have provisionally booked you on our earlier flight for the same day at 0700. Please contact your nearest Royal Jordanian office for alternate flight option and to update your itinerary.’

Helpfully it gives no contact details at all!

I might see what the diff is for a one way rental and then see about a refund. I’m 430 tier points from requalifying for BA Silver this year so I doubt the 10 is going to swing it one way or the other!

Good call on the connection on the way back too.