Hi! Obviously, I've not flown before and don't know the procedure:

We're flying Vanguard to New Orleans in a few weeks and I just noticed that the airfare went down about $15-20 for each ticket. Is there anyway to get the lower price, some kind of low-price guarantee, or is it too late for that?

This is a good question to ask your travel agent. Let us know. Thanks

Best to call the airline. Usually, they just let you take your lumps.

Have a great trip anyway!

I called my travel agent, because I'm almost positive they said I could get the lower fare if it went down, but of course, now they say no. Maybe I misunderstood. Anyway, I didn't think to call the airline, but just did. They said I couldn't get lower fare, either. Bummer! : )

Oh well, we'll have fun anyway!

I have found that typically most airlines don't let you obtain the lower price. I however had a wonderful experience with air canada this past year! We purchase tickets to St. Lucia at $650 p/ticket. A few month's later, I noticed the price went down to $395 per ticket. I called them up directly and asked them what I needed to do to get the lower price and they said "Nothing, if you will hold on I will process that request and they did and immediately credited my charge card for $250.00 per ticket at 4 tickets!!!!!! There was no charges, fees anything!!!!!! I will now make a point of using Air Canada whenever possible!!!!!!!
Hope this info helps anyone!

Gretchen, I'm guessing you first purchased a full fare coach ticket without restrictions. Therefore, you were able to "change" your ticket without a fee. However, with many airlines their restricted coach tickets require you to pay $50 or $100 to change your ticket. Sometimes, like in Gretchen's case, the difference in airfare is greater than the change fee and it's still worth calling the airline. For $15-20 I'd be surprised if the airline let you make the change.

It was not non-restricted ticket which surprised me even more! I have never purchased a ticket non-restricted ticket. Lucky day maybe? But you are right about the savings sometimes being more than the fare which is the original reason why I even called them.
It's always worth checking out!
Gretchen

Sorry about the bad grammar in my previous response. Wow, that was rough!!!

Even if Vanguard does not give you a refund for the difference, they may give you a voucher, good for future travel. It all depends on the class of service the flight was booked in..and what class of service the lower fare is booked in. If it is a different class of service,you are out of luck. Let us know your outcome!

Northwest has given us vouchers for future use worth the difference between the fare we paid and the new lower fare -on many occasions. You just have to call and ask for them.

We purchased United tickets for New York about three months in advance of our trip next month. Within a week, the fare dropped, so I called United and they were going to issue each of us an $80 credit certificate.

Then ... much to my surprise, less than a week later, it dropped again, to almost half of what we had originally paid. We now have $229 worth of credit each. They would have charged us $100 each to put the difference back onto our credit card, so we choose the credit certificate.

I always check to see if my fare has been lowered, but usually find that they have increased.

For this trip I have been checking daily on-line, and our NY fare seems to change several times a week, but I lucked out catching it when it was rock-bottom for those two days only.

Final price SF - NY, with senior discount and a previous United credit, $163 R/T each. Plus we upgraded with miles to Business. I'd call that a real bargain.

I called Vanguard back and just straight up asked for a voucher for the difference. They wouldn't offer that either. No luck just yet! : )

Hmmm..maybe since Vanguard isn't that big of an airline, they don't offer vouchers for a fare difference. YOu need to find out why they won't offer you a voucher..is it because a/ different class of service or b/ they just plain old don't issue vouchers when the fare goes down. Enquiring minds want to know.

Kelly:

Logged onto Vanguards website and read some rules on their excursion fares . It states plainly: No travel credits in case of lower fare. There you have it! We all learned something , didn't we?!

I guess we did! I read over my confirmation print-out and it didn't say anything like that, but I guess the Web site did!

Not that big of a deal, I guess, for $40. But if it was much more, I'd have been pretty upset!

Thanks for the insite, guys...maybe someone will know what to watch out for if they come across the same issue!

When airfares go up, the airlines don't charge you more. We shouldn't get upset that we don't get a refund for lower prices either.

A purchased ticket is a contract for transportation at an agreed-upon price. You always have the option of holding out until a lower price comes along, although we all know it may not!