My problem is not the cash back for my ticket, it’s everything I lose when I rebook last second afterwards.
They’ll just put their prices up to cover this wont they?
Yes. It’s still the right thing to do.
Cheaper nonrefundable tickets should be banned also.
Feels like the flight industry hasn’t recovered since COVID. This is a welcome change however
They haven’t lowered prices, that’s for sure.
Very interesting that it didn’t in the US, because it did in the EU.
The complete rules are here: https://www.transportation.gov/airconsumer/refundsfinalruleapril2024
The meat of it is the table on pages 9-14 and mostly comprehensible.
Worth noting:
- A change to your flight number is always a “cancellation” and you may choose to accept a refund
- The expectation is most people would not, for the same reason most don’t cancel their refundable tickets - they want to go on the flight
- There are no carve outs for weather, etc.
- I am really glad to see this because airlines could claim “weather” for connecting flights, so any weather anywhere meant they could delay your flight
Yeah, the weather note is huge. Historically, airlines would just cite “weather” because there was a single cloud in the sky halfway to the destination. Because if a cancellation was weather related, they didn’t have to pay out.
I basically see this as the government going “look, we tried to be nice and give you some leeway. But you abused that by citing weather for every single cancellation. So now you’re on a tight leash and can’t even cite it when it’s valid.”
- A change to your flight number is always a “cancellation” and you may choose to accept a refund
They’ll just pass the savings on to you.
Even if demand was perfectly inelastic and the burden was paid entirely by the consumer… I’d still rather get what I paid for than leave it up to chance.
