With holiday travel just around the corner, many of us are scrambling to get good ticket prices by booking early and comparing prices. But what happens when the price drops days after we pay for the ticket? The good news is that you can recover the costs by using a voucher.
The vouchers are part of the contract of carriage, which nobody really reads. But basically you can get a refund just by tracking the prices for the flight you booked ahead of time, and then zoom in for the kill when you see that seats are being offered for less. Since fares can fluctuate every day or even every hour this takes a lot of patience. But you do need to contact your airline right away before the price crawls back again.
When you call your airline you need to give the customer service representative your name, flight information and confirmation code. Then say that you have already bought a ticket, but have found out that a new fare is being offered. Then specifically request for a refund to make up for the difference. Sometimes you’ll be connected to a customer service personnel who doesn’t know about this policy, so ask to speak to a manager or hang up and then call again (chances are you’ll be connected to somebody else).
Note, however, that you may be charged with a fee, which the airline calls a ‘ticketing change.’ This wil be subtracted from any refund you may be entitled to. Since ticketing changes can be as large as $150 dollars you need to make sure that the price drop is significantly larger than that, or it’s not worth your trouble. This policy only applies if you bought your ticket from the airline and not the travel agent.
To make tracking airfares easier sign up for the airline’s twitter so you can get regular alerts. There are also some groups that will monitor the fares for you and then take care of getting your refund (service fees are about $20 per itinerary).
Photo from destination360.com
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