Alitalia Fare Dropped w/in 24 Hours of Purchase
 

I bought tickets online from Alitalia on Wednesday night. Just for the heck of it I went online Thursday to see if the fares had gone up. They had dropped!

I called Alitalia to see if they offer compensation, or any consideration, given the fact that I had just purchased the the tickets within a 24-hour period. The representative acted like she couldn't imagine why I would make such a request. Her best explanation was that if the fare had gone up they would not have come back to me and charged me more.

Is this normal? I have heard of people getting the difference back when the price dropped so soon after ticketing, or getting an airline credit back to be used on a future flight if the fare dropped any time before the flight date. (Not necessarily Alitalia, but in general.) Has anyone had this happen to them? What is typical these days?

<i>What is typical these days?</i>,

There is no one rule on fares.

Each airline has their own fare rules, but for the most part, the good old days of total free fare adjustment is gone.

Some airlines will issue credit or refund the difference with a re-ticketing fee, anywhere between $25 to $250 per ticket, so if the fare drops $100 but the fare rule states that re-ticketing will cost you $150, then you would actually have to pay the airline.

And there are many airlines that do just don't play that game and it seems like Alitalia is one of them.

Sorry about the bad news.

Now just relax and enjoy the trip!

<i>so if the fare drops $100 but the fare rule states that re-ticketing will cost you $150, then you would actually have to pay the airline. </i>

I didn't finish...

<b>if you wanted to get the $100 back</b>

A while ago, I think I managed to get AA to refund a fare difference, but as AAFF says, maybe this kind of thing is no longer possible.

Some airlines still have the 24h cancellation, no questions asked policy. This doesn't apply to AA, I think, but it still applies to Continental. I actually used this feature a few days ago. So if that applies, certainly it seems simplest to cancel and rebook at the lower price.

It's now Friday, but it might have been interesting to see if Alitalia has 24h cancellation.

I forget what the story is, but I've pretty sure I've used 24h cancellation for Expedia and/or Orbitz. I'll have to dig up the threads I started for that. But maybe this tells you that there could be an advantage booking with a 3rd party site -- whose cancellation policy may be more liberal than an airline's.

Thanks for the responses. No, Alitalia wouldn't let me cancel and re-book without imposing the $200 cancellation fee. So, since the price drop was just under $200 there was no point in doing that.

It's too bad that Alitalia doesn't even see the value of providing some customer service good will.

Sorry to hear that. I don't really know much at Alitalia, but I remember horror stories about them. I tend to think a lot of these things are standard and they are not the only one who doesn't have the 24h courtesy cancellation.

Better luck next time!

Whie Alitalia does not have a great reputation, they are far from alone on this one.

Sorry!

For me, the moral of this story is to buy a ticket at a fare you feel comfortable with and then <i>don't keep checking fares</i>. I think you only end up tormenting yourself this way, especially these days when you almost always have to pay a fee for reticketing.