Possible to cancel outbound & retain return
 

Due to complications I need to leave on my USAIrways flight from DCA to LGA a day early (Tuesday instead of Wednesday. I would like to use the return portion of my ticket on as reserved on this Saturday. I am being told by the agents that I can't do this unless I cancel the flight, pay a $100 change fee and then buy a oneway ticket for Saturday. Is this correct? Basically I might as well, just toss the ticket I have if it is correct. Any ideas would be greatly apprecaited. Thanks

It is true that if you don't fly your outbound and don't reticket it, you'll lose your return portion.

But you should also consider paying a fee to refund the whole ticket as a credit voucher, and then use that to buy your new Tuesday/Saturday roundtrip.

Yes, I could do that, but the $100 change fee coupled with the new fare leaving less than 24 hours in advance of the outbound puts the ticket over $400. So i might as well take the train and dump the airline tix....bummer.

Correct.

But you can still retain value of your ticket for future travel if you pay the fee to have a voucher issued.

you could fly IAD - JFK on JetBlue for $303.

Tue outbound, Sat return.

Call today to cancel your reservation and get a voucher. Tomorrow before departure time might be too late. Tomorrow after departure time would probably be too late and you'd lose all of the value of the ticket.

Thanks all -- I'm so annoyed about this that I'm not sure I even want to fly USAIR which I rarely fly to begin with. As I understand it I'd have to use it in a year. If i was doing this as a whim I might be more sympathetic to the airline, but it is an emergency that is causing the change and they still won't budge...I know, airlines hear ever story known to humanity and their policies can be rigid. I have until Wednesday at 11 am (my original outbound flight) to cancel, maybe I will feel differently by then.

Sorry, but you bought a non-refundable discount fare, and you have to abide by the rules.

Airlines do allow changes due to certain things - like death in family, etc. They can't just allow changes outside the rules as a courtesy to all.

Chokrebali: Advertising is not allowed on here ( as you know if you read the rules when you registered this evening) You expect folks to use your sleazy website when you can't read/understand simple english??

yestravel: You really have no reason to be annoyed w/ USAir. If one buys a discounted/non-changeable/non-refundable ticket - that is what it means. Be happy you can at least get a voucher for a fee.

Again, thanks all -- This change is complicated and does involve a death in my family and my daughter giving birth potentially earlier than expected. So I thought I did have extenuating circumstances that might allow some flexibilty. But after multiple calls to USAIR staff there appears to be no flexibility or special policies for breavement fares (or whatver they used to be called) anymore. After mulitple calls and different responses from USAIR yesterday I thought I would check with the experts on Fodors and see if anyone had suggestions.

Many carriers have eliminated bereavement fares, so US is not alone. In any case, bereavement fares were never inexpensive and often more than LCC walk up fares.

Sorry for your loss.

My husband's Uncle died in October. While we were able to use miles for my husbands's ticket, American Airlines gave his brother a very good "bereavement" fare that was about half the walk up fare. We had to provide his Uncle's name and the name/phone number of the funeral home to get the lower fare.

So while USAir doesn't do this, some airlines still do.

please clarify - did you purchase a bereavement fare ticket and now want to change it?

I don't believe yestravel purchased a bereavement fare ticket but rather is trying to change a "normal" restricted fare (read non-refundable) ticket because certain "complications" arose which happened to include the death of a family and the possible earlier than expected birth of a grandchild.

yestravel doesn't say what his/her relationship is to the recently departed relative but regardless USAIR's policy does not allow a them to give full refunds under that particular circumstance. Instead they have done what most airlines do is offer to let the ticket holder change the dates of travel for a payment of the fare differential (if any) plus a $100 per person change fee. That seems perfectly reasonable to me.

As others have said bereavement fares, when and if available, are not necessarily the lowest fares for a particular flight. From the information provided by yestravel we do not know if the $400 fare differential is based on the current price of a "regular ticket" or a bereavement fare ticket. Either way it will cost yestravel $400 to make the change.

Of course, yestravel could be using the term "bereavement" to describe his or her current situation as opposed to a "fare class". Without further clarification we just don't know.

That is why we need clarification -- I read &quot;<i>there appears to be no flexibility or special policies for breavement fares </i>&quot; to mean he had purchased a bereavement ticket, and now due to the daughter possibly giving birth early, he needs to alter the bereavement tickets.

We just don't know w/o the clarification . . . .

sorry for your loss, yestravel. I, too, think it would be nice if they made special consideration for these unfortunate circumstances. I certainly appreciated when my husband died in 1986 and amidst the grief and over 20 years later, I still appreciate that kindness. I didn't even ask them for it. You are just getting the standard deal that anyone can do. I would just skip the air altogether and eat the hundred dollar change fee and use the rest of the credit for a future trip.

Thanks for the information and kind words on the loss of my brother. As a follow up -- I did cancel the USAIR ticket, took the train and maybe will have an opportunity to pay the $100 change fee to USAIR and use the tix in the next year.

In answer to some of the questions -- my brother died, after I had bought the tix to NYC, so the ticket was not a breavement fare. In any case USAIR no longer offers them -- they havent for several years. I know other airlines do. My son got one from UA to come to DC for the funeral of my brother.

And, yes, of course I know that the ticket I purchased a couple weeks ago is non refundable etc. I was checking with Fodors to see if anyone had any sugggestions. Also, I have had experiences in extenuating circumstances where airlines have bent their rules. And ncounty, you are so right we remember and greatly appreciate the slighest kindness during times of tragedy. USAIR staff offered none -- not even in their words to me.

My condolences,

but at the same time you have to understand that airlines are a business.

Do you know how many people would use excuses if it was a known fact that the airline has a heart?

The airline would have to establish a special department to sort through and verify all the death certs, doctors excuses, special family functions, etc...

That costs money, money that they would need to collect from everybody else.

I hate to say it that way, but how many times will <b>you</b> have special circumstance after purchasing a plane ticket?

The airline sells millions of tickets daily and they have to deal with tens of thousands of special circumstances daily.

so, would you rather that they &quot;help you&quot; out this time, but at the same time have higher fares overall due to different price structuring since they would be making exceptions for everybody that asks, or take a little hit once or twice in your lifetime and have the ability to purchase lower fares all the other times?

I'm sorry to hear about your brother.

There are perhaps two issues here - the manner in which staff spoke to you on the phone, and the policies on bereavement fares.

I agree, it costs the airline nothing to be sympathetic and courteous, even if they cannot change the terms of the ticket as you booked it under different circumstances.

Death is enormously sad, but it also imposes special demands on the businesses that provide the associated services, from the funeral director to the airlines.

In the case of airlines, space has to be found at the last minute, and either somebody has to be bumped (and then compensated at considerable cost) in order to make space, or your new seat would have to be taken from the small inventory of seats set aside (and at the risk of never being sold) for last minute bookings/re-bookings. While most airlines don't charge as much for this service for bereavement travelers as they do for, say, business people traveling at the last minute, there is a cost to it which as a business they can't absorb. Just as funerals (which are also expensive - !!!) are in the normal event paid by the survivors, so too are the associated costs, like transportation of the bereaved to the service.

Truly, I'm sorry about your brother.

Thanks--all I really wanted to do was cancel my outbound (which would have given them an extra seat to resell) and retain my return portion of the ticket. I did not know the rules on this. After calling USAIR several times I turned to Fodors because several different USAIR staff gave me different answers when I called.

And what do I want from the airlines? pretty simple--give me polite, competent and knowledgeable staff who can give clear, understandable answers to my questions. The same that I expect from any service organization.

They apparently did, but the answer was not the one you wanted to hear...

That can drive one crazy, can't it, getting several different answers to the same question. I can never figure out if it is because circumstances with change and so the answers change with time, or because the staff member in question is misinformed, or both.

It's true that canceling your outbound seat would free up one for their inventory, but the advantage to them is not that great. Your 'cancelled' seat is still freed only in one direction - and the majority of their customers, even their last-minute customers, want seats in PAIRS - one outbound, one for the return. (It's like trying to trade the left shoe of a size 7.5 pair for a left one of a size 8.0 pair, whilst still keeping the right shoe of the size 7.5 pair. The shoe salesperson will likely turn you down just as the airline did.)

Anyway, you have the voucher now, so you can look forward to taking a trip when things are less sad for you and your family.