I have a "what if" question here. Say you really wanted to extend your stay, but you were locked into a travel site's plan, with no cancellations without a fee deal. Say you sort of missed your flight...hmmm would the airline (TACA) maybe let you reschedule for another flight a few days down the road? Or would you get penalized and have to take the next available flight? We really want to stay longer in Costa Rica, but can't seem to swing it without a huge cancellation fiasco. What can I say, we are dumb....Has anyone ever encountered this in any way, shape or form?

We stayed an extra day in SMdA in Jan as we were serious house buyers.
Bought the house, but lost our "first class" seats the following day: no cash penalty.
Fortunately only a two hour flight to DFW from BJX.
M

The worst-case scenario is probably this: You'd forfeit the original ticket and would need to buy a full-fare one-way ticket back home. That could be pretty expensive, and probably more expensive than any penalty for changing your return date. Check with TACA to see how it would play out.

bring a lot of plaster of paris and adhesive tape with you. Construct casts on at least one arm and one leg before you go to the airport and beg for mercy for missing the flight. It might work and it might not.

I did miss my flight home (but from Rio). I was able to book the next available flight, which was not till 2 days later, and I did incur penalty charges.

On our last trip to CR we had to extend our departure by one day so my husband could replace his stolen passport. Even this tale of woe did not move United. They would not eliminate the change fee ($100 or so per ticket). They told us to take it up with customer service later. We wrote, but they still turned us down.

Thanks for all the kind and speedy responses. It gives me a hint at what to expect. What we will probably do is show up for our return flight and see if we can change flights at that point. I honestly wouldn't mind a penalty that wasn't going to bowl me over.
We shouldn't be complaining, we are getting 9 days and nights for such a good price. We can actually afford to take another trip even sooner. Now we're talking!!!!
Oh, I have one more option. I am going to try making a phone call to TACA and see what they say. Only problem so far, the number I have just rings and rings and no one picks up. Hello?

To MJ711 - I don't mean to sound preachy but don't you think the airlines are wise to this ploy - they've been hearing different versions of the "old miss my flight story" everyday for years and years. If you are on a restricted ticket and you miss your flight you will most definitly have to pay, at the very least, the re-ticketing penalty or, as Jeff says, the worst case you will have to buy a full fare one-way ticket. The moral of this story - pay the re-ticketing penalty and travel on the day you want.

You are assuming you'll be able to get a flight back when you want. You are risking being stuck there for several days longer just to get on a flight back home. Just because your flight from Costa Rica isn't full, doesn't mean the connecting flights in the States aren't. If they can't book you all the way through, you'll have to won't be able to leave until they can.

I know many years ago when I went to Italy (on a planned itinerary), I had to fly to Milan from Rome 2 days before my flight from Milan to Dulles because the connections didn't work. (No Rome to Milan seats available the same day as Milan to DC) Fortunately a friend of mine had parents in Milan I could stay with and only had extra food costs to deal with.

Just something else to think about.

~gnr~

I really am not trying to formulate a "ploy" to screw the airlines or fool anyone in anyway. My intentions are just to extend our trip and enjoy more of Costa Rica and spend more money there. I could go ahead and pay the $225.oo penalty to the airlines. NO problem, I could deal with that. But what we did no know at the time of our booking..with Tavelocity, is that if you book a hotel/flight package..you also have to extend your hotel package..They can really get you here. They want to charge us an extra $900 to stay an extra five days at a hotel that is listed at $50 per night. The fine print being the original hotel is booked and we have to go to the hotel of their choice. WHat a scam..in a sort ...my own fault kinda way.
Now I am resolved to the fact that we won't be staying any longer. Oh and by the way. I am a desperate housewife, of sorts...who is doing all the planning of a trip to somewhere I have never been. I will let you all know how it turns out. Thanks

If you miss your flight due to a voluntary change, then you are bound by the terms of your contract.

I suggest getting travel insurance. If you miss your flight due to weather or other involuntary factors, then you are covered.

I know people who missed their flight (train was late) and the airline told them they had to go on the next available flight on a stand-by basis. This means you have to be at the airport before each flight in case they have no-shows or last minute cancelations. But if not, then you repeat the senario for the next flight - and the next. So you might get a few extra days - but you could end up spending the whole time at the airport.

I missed a TACA flight for real and here's what happened:
1· it was an open ticket for one year, I was returning before that time anyway siço I don't really know if you can actually extend the time you have for a ticket with TACA
2· I was not forced to board the next plane, though I actually wanted to do so, I had to wait a whole week for another available flight and had to do extra stops on the way and was lucky I got it because otherwise I would have had to wait for about a month.
3· I has made a change in the original return date and had to pay a $100 dollar fee for that, and then I was supposed to pay a $25 or I don't remember if a little more for a "no show" or "missed my plane". In the end I only had to pay the $25, I'm not sure if it was because they made a mistake or if it should have been like this. I never inquired about it because I was very angry at the call center girl that had told me my plane left at 12:30 when it actually left at 00:30 or 24:30 and that's why I missed my plane, I went 12 hours late to it.

I hope my experience with the same company helps you. If you have a 15 day ticket I don't really think that missing the plane will alow you to extend it but if you are within the time range you ticket allows, I guess the "missed my plane" fee is quite lower than the "want to change my departure date" fee. At least it was for me.

ttt

First - many thanks to wtm003 for locating this thread for me!!

MJ711, it's because of schemes like this (as well as my own stupidity) that DH and I had such a rotten time returning from the BVIs this past spring.

We really missed our flight back and it was totally my fault, but that doesn't mean we had to be treated the way we were.

When booking air fare (almost a year in advance of our trip because of a great seat sale)I booked with US Air. As I need to have an aisle seat for DH on the right side of the plane due to a physical condition that DH has, I was flipping back and forth between US Air's site and SeatGuru. US Air's site is not particularly flexible. When I'd chosen our seats and flights eventually, I failed to notice that the return date had somehow defaulted to a day 2 days before our planned return. My fault for not being more thorough. Booked the tix. Printed off the confirmation, but never once in many months before travel dir I ever look at that tiny bit of info called "Return Date". 3 months later, I notice, comletely by accident while checking US Air's site, that they have changed our return flight to a different plane. Now we don't have the aisle seat hubby needs. I try to change the seat reservations on line, but US Air doesn't allow this. You gotta call. I spend about 45 minutes in US Air's version of "Voice Mail Hell" and finally get to talk to a real person who changes our seat bookings to ones that allow DH to have the seats he needs for health reasons but does not allow us to sit together. Oh well.

2 lovely weeks in the BVI we had. Showed up at STT airport 3 hours before flight time on our supposed departure date. Had a leisurely lunch and punch in the snack bar area and then went to check in. Now the fun begins!

The ticket agent (who was an absolutely lovely man who went out of his way to help us) tells us that he has no record of our ticket. More checking and then he says "You guys were supposed to fly out 2 days ago!" Sure enough, he hands me back my printed Eticket confirmation and it shows our departure date as 2 days ago! With the spped of light my brain processes the fact that either I've screwed up or the phone lady at US Air has. Can't be me, obviously, so it must have been her - LOL. I panic and start to almost cry and try to explain. The agent calms me down and explains that there are open seats on our flight if we want them. I say "Oh please, yes! Whatever penalty. We'll look into it after and recover the money if we are not to blame". This wonderful man then says "You can have the 2 seats at the original price you paid, but my supervisor has to approve it - I'll get him". I'm starting to feel lucky now (Don't ever trust this feeling!!).

We wait over an hour before the supervisor shows up. And he is NASTY! When he does show up, he is more interested in attacking us for trying to get a few free days on STT than helping to straighten out the issue. We were called "your type of people" so many times!. By now he tells us that we can't make our original flight because it's 1 minute too late to spend the required 40 minutes in security. Nope - he won't let us on. By now, I'm really crying and he obviously likes this. (We talked to the agent later who was boggled at this!!)

Eventually he sent us over to the Delta counter because his computer shows that Delta has some open flights (at over 3X what we paid). We are OK with this. We want to go home and we don't want to talk to this guy for a minute longer. So - stand in line at Delta. 20 minute later, get told that Delta is booked solid - and HAS BEEN for 24 hours!

Back to US Air desk. Wait for the supervisor again. Tell him that we need to get out on his airline. OK - we know we may have screwed up. We are willing to pay the difference in air fare, but please get us home.

"Can't get you both out of STT to PHL-YOW for 2 days". "OK fine," I say. "Just let me know when you can get us out and I'll book a hotel for 2 days".

Supervisor absolutely erupts at this point! "You people are always trying to get something for nothing!!!!! I want you off this island NOW!!!!" He issues tickets for the last flight to Charlotte NC, with connecting flights to PHL and YOW the next day. We were delighted to go!

This is a long, long post. I can't begin to describe how badly this man treated us. And especially me. He seemed to delight in having me in tears in front of several hundred other travellers.

Nevertheless, it was readily apparent from the get-go that he had dealt with many people who were intentionally trying to abuse the terms of their air tix and he had lumped us into that category.

Gosh..that is a real horror story! At this point we have already decided to end our stay at the planned time. Hopefully, we won't really miss our flight!!!
I was going to add something to the fact that we booked through Travelocity. WHich is a good company..don't get me wrong.. great prices and so forth. We got such a deal. But if you have to call them for any reason for customer service, your call goes straight through to India. I wonder just how compassionate they are with us travellers and our menial complaints. I just felt like they are so far away. I don't know, maybe that just me. Anyway.....I hope no one has the problem saharabee had. That is bad!!

MJ711, the story actually gets even worse - LOL.

Because we live way out in the countryside and our original flights were scheduled to depart YOW really early morning and arrive back about 1 AM, I had made arrangements with a local small town cab company (3 cars) to drive us to and from the airport for a flat rate of $150.00. I printed off a copy of our US Air itinerary and gave it to Dave, the cab owner before we left. Of course, without me realizing, this had the return date as 2 days before we actually flew back. So Dave showed up at YOW waiting for us per the schedule. We didn't show and he spent 2 days contacting everyone he thought might know us to try and figure out why we had disappeared off the face of the earth!

As soon as I had flights arranged at STT, I realized he would be worried and tried to call him from STT airport pay phones. The phones wouldn't take my Canadian calling card or any of my credit cards. When we arrived in Charlotte, we grabbed a shuttle to the nearest Sheraton and were able to reach him finally. And yes, he showed up the following day to get us!

On a brighter note, the Sheraton at Charlotte was magnificent. When they heard our horror tale, they gave us a "hardship" rate of $69.00 for the night and re-opened the kitchen so we could get something to eat at 11:30 PM. Wonderful folks - and those beds!!!!! Awesome. Dave didn't want to take a penny extra over the price he had quoted us, but we insisted on giving him double his fare! The fact he had spent 2 days trying to track us down was touching.

And there was a funny note to it all as well. When we checked into the Sheraton, the first room we were given was very musty smelling. After 5 minutes there we decided that we couldn't take the smell and I asked for another room. They graciously complied. Little did we know that they immediately re-let the room to a late-arriving business-woman, who let herself into the room while I was in the new room. DH was still in the first room gathering up the last of our belongings. Now, DH is a gentleman and a sweetie and the kindest soul on the face of this earth. He's also only 5'7" tall and weighs about 145 lbs. But, he does like his Harley-Davidson, and with his long pony-tailed hair and big ZZTop beard, a HD hat and T-shirt, he can look (to a lady alone in a hotel room in the middle of the night) - um - a bit menacing. The lady in question ran shrieking back down to the front desk babbling about a man in her room. The front desk tried to assure her that the locks had been chaged and, once out, he would not be able to get back in. No go! After having seen him, there was no way on God's green earth that she was going to take that room! Just as well though, I'm sure that she would not have liked the smell.

It's all too funny now in retrospect, but it was certainly a horror tale at the time.

saharabee - This doesn't surprise me. We haven't flown US Air in 10 years because they booked us on a free frequent flyer flight to Peru with a &quot;partner airline&quot; that went bankrupt - <i>while</i> we were in Peru. We ended up spending $1500 to get back home and not only would US Air not refund the money (&quot;they aren't responsible for their partners&quot, they wouldn't even give us the frequent flyer miles back. They gave us 2 - $200 vouchers because the gate agent at the Miami airport was rude to us while we were trying to get our connecting flight back to Baltimore (since we hadnt flown the first part of our ticket, they had voided the second part). We used the $200 vouchers within 6 months and haven't been on them again.

<font color=#990033>~gnr~</font>

I should clarify - the domestic portion, BWI to Miami, was on US Air, the Miami to Lima part was on the partner.

<font color=#990033>~gnr~</font>

yep, I have heard all these stories in various travel threads. Unfortunately, some of them are legitamate and some of them aren't. I have seen unusually rude airline agents and have seen unusually rude passengers who are just trying to screw the airlines and don't understand that they just can't decide to return home whenever they please no matter who it inconviences. Your lesson to all of us about checking and double checking tickets is a valuable one and good advice. Many of the booking sites default to a 2 day return which I don't like but have learned to watch carefully. Some sites quote prices with taxes included and others don't and suprise you at the end of the booking process. Unfortunately much of it is a by- product of &quot;commodity pricing&quot; of the airline seats. We all want lower prices (in many cases lower than they were 30 years ago) and as a result have to do the booking ourselves through sometimes unfamiliar territory. I have traveled extensively and it still takes all of my &quot;attention&quot; to be able to complete the travel process without a slip-up. Unfortunate stories but good lessons for all of us. Thanks for sharing. Saharabee, kudos to you for taking care of the cab driver!! good job.