Article: As Airfares Fall, Save Even After Buying

[Cabbage]

From the NY times:

You don’t have to miss out on the deals. In response to customers’ anxiety over missing out on later, better prices — and to spur travelers to book early instead of waiting until the last minute — a growing number of travel companies are making it easier to get a refund even after you’ve booked and paid for a trip.

Travelocity recently began offering automatic reimbursements to customers who book a vacation package on the site by May 31 if another customer books the same trip for less. And priceline is offering a similar promotion for airline tickets and vacation packages booked on its site by June 1.

But even before the recent flurry of such price-protection services, airlines refunded the difference in their fares to travelers who asked. For customers who book with an airline directly, the refund usually comes in the form of a voucher good for use toward a future flight rather than cash. But with prices dropping so dramatically, keeping track of the cost of your ticket, even after booking, can pay off.

Could another member please post the full link as I am a new member and unable to post links to other sites. Currently #7 most read article in the NY times travel website.


Anyone used such a scheme to get their money back if fares went higher after purchase? Having noticed a few threads of late where people found their tickets dropped significantly after purchase, any chance an Aussie airlines would ever implement a scheme to encourage forward bookings?

 

[oz_mark]

Could another member please post the full link as I am a new member and unable to post links to other sites. Currently #7 most read article in the NY times travel website.

here 'tis: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/29/travel/29pracrefund.html?_r=1&em

 

[Mal]

Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/29/travel/29pracrefund.html?_r=1&em

Refaring is quite popular in the U.S - for some reason they never came to grips with the concept of airlines making money

I don't know of any Australian airline that allows similar (although, some fares do allow you to cancel and rebook for a penalty of $xx_ or for free)

In the last little while though, sites have popped up which makes this extremely easy (eg type in your booking details, it emails you immediately if the price drops so you can refare). As a result, US airlines are starting to increase the fees required to refare etc.

 

[drron]

And if you read the airlines forum on TA you will see every day someone posting-"I was ripped of by xx_xx,after I bought my ticket the price dropped.Who do I complain to."They feel they have a right to compensation in this situation.It seems the ability to read a contract is not taught in US schools.

 

[odysseus]

The earlier discussion I read elsewhere on this though was that the chance of refunds are very limited in these cases.

If most promos applied to individual components, such as flights or hotels only as are more common on internet bookings, there'd be a lot more potentiality for a discount to arise. However, these offers are mostly restricted to entire packages - and when you book the package, the chance of a specific combination is going to be very limited. All of the below have to match exactly for it to be a match:
Number of passengers
Origin and destination airport
Departure date
Return date
Departure airline
Return arline
Departure time
Return time
Hotel stayed in
Room type occupied
Hotel check-in/out dates

It's unlikely enough just to get two bookings for a traveller from city X to City Y on the same dates, where they both stay at the same hotel. On top of that, they have to fly on exactly the same flights on the same class of ticket, and stay in the same room class at the same time.

You don't even want to know the chance if the traveller has booked a car as well - a number of characteristics there also have to be matched then for a comparison to be met.

The simplest combination is priceline's airfare match; the things that have to match there are: "same dates and times of travel, same airline, same flight numbers, same passenger type and cabin, subject to the same fare refundability and subject to the same fare restrictions (for example, if you book an unrestricted airfare on priceline.com, it will not qualify for the Priceline Pricedrop Protection SM if a customer with a restricted airfare receives a lower fare on priceline.com) ". This is where there is the most potential for refunds, but it still requires a new booking in the same class to occur.

Lastly, it's a matter of relying on the provider to say that there has been a cheaper booking. While I don't doubt that they will check and refund, it's not under the passenger's control. Refunds only occur where a new package has been booked and paid for, so even if a customer monitored their package for price drops and there happened to be one for the same combination, it would need to be purchased before they could get a refund, so they couldn't just purchase it themselves.

 

[kjcrombie]

A sale is a sale. At best there might be a 24hr grace period. Do car sales or Harvey Norman reprice?

 

[Dave Noble]

A sale is a sale. At best there might be a 24hr grace period. Do car sales or Harvey Norman reprice?

Some stores effectively do

Some of the major retailers (e.g. **** Smith) allow a product to be returned within a certain number of days for a full refund, so can take it back, refund and get it at the lower price

In the US, it is not uncommon for stores to offer to refund the difference if prices do drop within a number of days; e.g. Best Buy offers 30 days to a rewards card holder iirc

Dave

 

[djfuzz]

... and the reason they do this is because it has the net effect of inducing customers to buy now with confidence, and without having to dither about getting a better price later or elsewhere.

The proportion of refunds or price matches they have to meet is outweighed by the increased revenue from customer loyalty and other customers who are either too lazy, don't know, or simply don't care about the difference.

 

[PaulL]

We had booked to fly to Europe next month. We saw the ads for cheap airfares so we cancelled our booking and re booked on the exact same flights and we saved $1000.00 each even with paying the penalty

Kate

 

[sumthinfornuthin]

Basically it's tough luck. Conversly if you snapped up a cheap fare how would you feel if the price later went up and you copped the increase too even though you had paid.

You would be... "not happy Jan".

At the end of the day we make a decision at the time and that is it. Everything else in life is the same.

If we constantly try and screw everybody into the ground they make no profit and standards fall or they go broke asnd then prices go up again. At the moment air travel is the cheapest it's been for 20 years. Lets make the most of it and still be happy even if a cheaper fare pops up tomorrow.

Am I wrong ??

 

[AVM]

I was looking for fare Perth to Vancouver several weeks ago for travel April 14, initially the best I could get was around $2300, Qantas had come down from about $3000 to around $2600 and several other airlines were a little below that. I was not locked to an airline but do like to use Qantas club when possible.

Up came a fare Qantas/Northwest for just under $2000, Northwest give access to their lounge in Tokyo outbound and I can use my Qantas Club inbound. All in all I may be able to get there for less now but I am more than happy with what I have.

AVM

 

[ozstamps]

United has also started charging a $US150 re-fare fee from this month.

 

[NM]

Am I wrong ??

Nope. Pretty much spot on by my book.

 

[Starwood]

Yes, I was always an 'early bird'. Never again! Last July, during talk of fuel surcharges, I booked two return tickets Sydney-San Francisco on Air New Zealand. The price for this trip, being taken in mid April 2009, has now dropped by 50% (we are talking big holiday dollars here!). I purchased ’non refundable tickets' knowing we would definitely be travelling. Air New Zealand actually changed our flight (no flights on a Thursday now sorry) but even then I could not cancel. I could have got a 'credit note' to use the $ to fly within a future set period (think it was 9 or 12 months on Air New Zealand) but as I was not planning any future big holidays in this period it did not seem a good deal. Lesson learnt, in future I plan only to book air tickets about 3 months in advance, no matter how organised and well planned my holidays are.

 

[pauly7]

Some stores effectively do

Some of the major retailers (e.g. **** Smith) allow a product to be returned within a certain number of days for a full refund, so can take it back, refund and get it at the lower price

Dave

Yep the 'Good Guys' do as well, Bought a TV a couple of years ago, a week later I stumbled across it in Dsmith for $200 cheaper. Horrible feeling, then I remembered some kind of price guarantee, went back - they called, confirmed the price and refunded the difference plus 10-20% I think? Worked out to be a very cheap TV!!

 

[oldbold]

After checking various sites for the best fare, I recently purchased one-way tickets on the Canadian airline Westjet. A few days afterwards, I found a sale on Westjet fares on their website. I had to telephone them to change: there was a transaction fee of CAD50.00, but I kept the reservations, changed to the sale airfare, and was given a credit of CAD262.50.
As it seems unlikely that I would be able to utilise this, I put the credit voucher for sale on eBay, raising CAD215.00 in one week. No problems with the transfer of name.
I am impressed!

 

[colin5353]

I've only ever had the opposite problem. Needed to change a booking and then had to pay an increase in cost - which I understand with cheap fares. What I dont get is the following eg: Booked to travel to NZ via QF. Flights were Adelaide to Syd to Christchurch - and return. Then QF announced that Jetstar were taking over the domestic NZ routes. My flights were changed - to Adl-Syd-Auckland-Christchurch, and home Chc-Akl-Mel-Adl. Then several other flights appeared on the booking and nothing made sense, we were leaving Auckland 2 hours before we were getting there. Rang QF first consultant said "oh I cant help" and hung up on me. Second person changed flights, deleted all the weird ones and got us Adl-Syd-Akl-Chc, with the Syd-Akl flying with Lan, and the return back to Chc-Syd-Adl. Then Lan changed their dep time out of Syd so it was all changed again, including the return flights. We were back to adl-syd-akl-chc-akl-mel-adl with on the way over a 6hr wait in syd, and on the way back a 4 hour wait in melb. Yet the original return flights with qf of chc-syd-adl were still avaialble at the orig times and had seats (at cheaper than I booked). rang qf and was told to ring qf holidays - rang them they said yes thats silly and rebooked the return flights chc-syd-adl - BUT charged an extra $76 to do so. Even tho this was the original booking. So I now understand a new money making scheme with QF, accept the booking, changed it for no reason and make the pax pay more to have it go back to what they booked in the first place.

 

[JohnK]

To be fair airfares have been very volatile for many years but even more so today. Why so many variables? Why so many unknowns? And we sit here justifying being ripped off and saying tough luck that is how it works. Like most businesses I should be able to purchase an airfare and within a certain timeframe be able to change it or cancel it free of charge. What makes an airline so special?

We can purchase a bus ticket from Brisbane to Sydney and know that almost every person around us has paid the same price for the ticket obviously excluding pensioners, seniors, children and students. The same can be said for train travel. trams, ferries etc.

But on an airline you can have 10 people sitting across a row on a 747 and everyone of them has paid a different price for the same seat and service. In fact the 10 people behind them or the 10 people behind them could all have paid a different price for the same seat and service.

Airlines have had it good for a long time but the pendulum has swung back the other way. It is now the customer that dictates the price they will pay for the airfare and hopefully enough competition remains to keep the airfares low and less volatile. An airline does not need to make $2 billion profit every year to survive. Share the profit around and you would be surprised how many airlines can survive by making a profit. Remember any profit is a good profit and is much better than a loss. Will the good times return? Who knows but from where I am sitting it is all looking gloomy....

 

[WA flyer]

But on an airline you can have 10 people sitting across a row on a 747 and everyone of them has paid a different price for the same seat and service. In fact the 10 people behind them or the 10 people behind them could all have paid a different price for the same seat and service.

It's pretty much the same with the cruise industry, once they have sold a certain number of berths to achieve break-even they will progressively drop the price and offer staff "family and friends" at little more than the price of the food they are likely to consume. You are told not to tell other passengers how much you paid!

 

[Harpoon]

Wow! Was reading The Age website this morning and saw their article on cheap air fares:

AIR NEW ZEALAND to Los Angeles $1005 (sale ends April 20)
QANTAS to New York $1113 (sale ends April 17)
SINGAPORE AIRLINES to London $1449 (sale ends April 17)
SINGAPORE AIRLINES to Barcelona $1340
MALAYSIA AIRLINES to Tokyo $696
MALAYSIA AIRLINES to Beijing $919
VIRGIN BLUE to Bali (one way) $299

The $1005 return to LA from MEL is simply amazing! Then I checked out V Australia's fare from MEL and it's $999!!!

Might be time for a US holiday. These bargain air fares certainly make up for the low dollar....

Hmmmm... so who's taking advantage of these fares?