Take advantage of airlines’ same day change policy in Europe

From what I understand, “same-day standby” is a very common practice in North America, where airlines allow passengers to move to a different flight on the day if there’s availability. What you may not know is, such a thing also exists in Europe, although airlines don’t proactively advertise it.

[British Airways]

British Airways is possibly the vanguard in this area, and there’s a lengthy thread on Flyertalk where people share their experiences. In order to make use their Free Change on the Day (FCOD) policy, there are certain rules:

• Short-haul direct flights only
• Revenue flights only, so no Avios ticket
• Excluding Economy Basic / Hand Baggage Only fare – Economy Plus and all Club Europe tickets are okay
• FCOD opens at midnight local time* and closes one hour before departure
• You can request a free change to another available flight of the same route on the same day
• You may be able to change the airport (e.g. from LHR to LGW) but that comes with a fee

Note that there are data points suggesting it’s actually midnight UK time instead of local time, at least in some cases. Bad news if you are travelling from Europe as it won’t be open until 1am or 2am.

[Aegean]

Aegean has a very similar same-day change (SDC) policy, written in the fare rules. You’ll find some discussions on Flyertalk as well.

The fare applies to ComfortFlex and Business Class fares (excluding Business Basic), so less generous than BA. I flew Aegean recently and got a chance to test it.

The SDC option prompted after midnight Greece time when I started online check-in, available on both web and app.

Note that you must do it via online check-in. The “change flight” button in manage booking only brings up paid options. Although I didn’t proceed, it looked very straightforward.

[SAS]

SAS allows same-day flight change on short-haul Plus Pro tickets and for Diamond members. You can find a guide on Flyertalk here.

• The option is available from around 22 hours before departure, instead of “on the same day”
• Most OTA bookings are ineligible
• Award bookings are eligible

Same day flight change is a nice gesture from the airline, with which you can book a cheaper flight of the day and hope to change it later, if it’s worth the gamble. Interesting to see if more airlines (notably Lufthansa and Air France) will add this feature in the future.