What might come across as an affordable insurance solution will most likely have several grey areas regarding full reimbursement. American Airlines, for example, recommends customers adding trip insurance to their flight booking. With refundable ticket prices through the roof and thin coverage on airline insurance, what are the alternatives for this generation? However, committing to a non-refundable ticket might just be the answer. Refundable tickets and airline insurance are so high because airlines function on yield management techniques and are therefore notorious for swiping as much money that is humanly possible out of every customer.
Insurance companies, on the other hand, work on risk and operating costs to sell you a policy and in return profit little. Rather than setting out to make revenue from a customer, insurance companies are able to offer affordable deals and make earnings due to the fact that people rarely cancel.
Seniors who want all the perks from a refundable ticket should therefore do the math on taking a non-refundable ticket and buying travel insurance. It is therefore time seniors put a stop to airlines robbing them blind by using this easy travel hack. Notify me of follow-up comments by email. Notify me of new posts by email. Home Web Refundable vs. The final and maybe the most important trick to negotiating a successful refund is persistence.
I've seen so many cases that started like Jeanette Franz's. She was flying from Austin, Texas, to Moline, Illinois, on American Airlines for her grandmother's funeral and experienced a lengthy delay in Dallas that made her miss the event. She contacted the airline and asked for a refund, but it refused, offering flight vouchers instead.
She appealed to an executive but received the same answer. Franz didn't give up. She kept replying to the appeals, arguing that she'd made a trip in vain and should receive a full refund. Eventually, with a little nudge from yours truly, American agreed with her and refunded her tickets. There's no secret formula for getting a refund on a nonrefundable ticket. But with a few kind words, some insider knowledge and diligence, you could get your money back.
It's always worth a try. Remember the hour rule. If you're flying domestically, you can cancel most tickets within 24 hours of booking them. Airlines will try to offer a flight credit, but if you cite the hour rule, you should get an immediate refund. Another benefit some online travel agencies have is an offer to refund price drops if you book with them and the price drops on the same itinerary. CheapAir does include a booking fee in its fares so you will likely be paying slightly more for your ticket on CheapAir than on other sites.
There are also insurance companies that sell cancel for any reason travel insurance. These are typically costly, but do offer more insurance than you can get with your credit card.
Many credit cards offer some sort of travel insurance, but there usually has to be a qualifying reason for that insurance to be valid. If all you want to do is change travel dates or itinerary, there are certain airlines that allow this without paying a change fee.
However, a fare difference will always apply, so you may still have to pay more if the airfare has risen since your original purchase. During certain circumstances, such as forecasted severe weather, most airlines will preemptively allow you to make flight changes free of charge within a certain time frame and will often not charge a fare difference.
Update: Due to the coronavirus COVID pandemic, many airlines are now allowing travelers to voluntarily change flights without an extra fee. Make sure to check your airline's specific policies before booking. As with the schedule loophole listed above, if the airline changes your itinerary significantly due to a schedule change, you may be able to reschedule your flight to a more preferred flight schedule or even to a different date.
If the airline changes your flight to include a long layover or a day flight becomes an overnight connection, you can try your luck at calling the airline and ask if you can be put on a nonstop flight from LAX to NYC instead.
Southwest Airlines has the best policy when it comes to flight changes. You can either re-book any flight at the same time or keep the credit on that reservation up to one year from original purchase date for a future flight.
You can make as many changes as you want and can even receive a flight credit if the price drops on your flight and you re-book at the lower price. Both Frontier Airlines and Sun Country Airlines have relatively new no change fee policies for changes made at least 60 days in advance of departure. Nonrefundable fares, on the other hand, cannot be returned for a full refund. Some nonrefundable fares can be canceled or changed for a partial refund in the form of an airline flight voucher, but rarely can you receive cash or credit card reimbursement for a canceled nonrefundable fare.
However, even if a flight voucher is offered, airlines generally hit passengers with hefty change fees or other processing charges if they wish to cancel or change a nonrefundable ticket.
Plane tickets are perishable products with a set shelf life and their price fluctuates according to supply and demand, purchasing windows, and other unpredictable variables. If every passenger was able to cancel for a full refund at any time, airlines would have to raise their prices across the board to account for this increased risk.
This is also why nonrefundable fares are often the cheapest tickets offered by an airline. Passengers attempting to cancel a nonrefundable fare might receive a partial airline voucher in return, but rarely will they see a cash or credit card reimbursement and typically large fees will be deducted from the original value.
This can depend on airline policy as well as other factors like airline loyalty status and the particular fare class purchased, and there are always exceptions.
Many OTAs online travel agencies have similar rules.
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