Heather

I bought tickets on United airlines to Missoula, MT for Thanksgiving right before Sept. 11th and paid 450. I just happened to check and now they're 245? What are the chances of getting a refund for the difference? Thanks for any opinions.

Phil

Heather,
If it is a non-refundable ticket, you're probably not going to get a refund.

However, sometimes with non-refundable tickets, you can use the value of the tickets (less some fee, ($75 on Continental)) towards the purchase of another ticket within one year. You might want to ask United about it's rules.

If you can do that, you can buy the new ticket at $245, and use the remaining value of the $450 ticket at a later date.

Again, check with your airline. (I've needed to do this several times on Continental when I've changed some business trips.)

apc

I had good luck with a similar situation on US Airways. I noticed that the flight cost had gone down and called. They said if the difference is over $100, they gave you back the difference. If it was less than $100, then you got a voucher for that amount for each ticket to be used in the future. In my case, the difference was $78, which I now can use on my next US Airways flight.

I would definitely call if I were you.

cg

Definitely call. I had a similar situation on Northwest a couple years ago and got back about $110, no problem. I was shocked that they were so willing to give me the refund.

Worst case - they say no. Best case, you save a chunk of change. You might try talking to a couple of different people when you call. If the first person says no, talk to a supervisor. I've noticed that the competence/willingness to cooperate of the reservations agents varies wildly.

Vicki

we currently have "vouchers" resulting from a difference in ticket prices when we rebooked a flight. Fortunately, in our situation, there was no fee to cancel and rebook, but now the vouchers indicate "service charge applies for reissue". So what the heck is the charge? When someone receives a refund towards a future flight, do they pay a fee to use that refund? I guess I'll call American about this.

walt

We did this a few times with our tickets on Continental. Only problem we had was to get to the closest office and we live in a rural area almost 75 miles from Albany. When we got there one time all computers were down, so we went for lunch and on our return we got our vouchers minus $75.00 per ticket service fee. But we still saved over $290 for both tickets. Good luck and hope that United airlines will do the same. Have a great time in Montana.

Celeste

Delta has frequently refunded the difference to me, but of course charged their little fee ($100) for each ticket first. But the last difference was between $1065 and $535, so that didn't hurt a bit! Insist!