<p>I only recently booked airline tickets through the airline to attend a scholarship competition at a school son is most interested in. I was lucky enough to get fairly inexpensive tickets, but with the three of us, up and back, it totalled 600 bucks.</p>
<p>Son just received an invitation to interview for a full scholarship to a school he has never visited, but has accepted him with a half scholarship already. Son really wants to attend this interview and visit this school, and I’m wondering if I’m going to have to eat 600 bucks worth of airline tickets.</p>
<p>I’ve tried called the airline, but they can’t answer because they’re tied up with the weather problems. I’ve sent them an email and hope to hear back soon. I’ve already researched flights, and the difference in price for the six tickets would be another 600, but that’s fine if they let me apply the cost of the old tickets to the others.</p>
<p>Has anybody else had any experience with this? Any words of advice?</p>
<p>no idea what airline this is, but usually, you will have to pay the “change” fee and then you will be permitted to apply the $600 to another itinerary…the change fee is per passenger and can range from $100-$200/ticket depending on the airline…sorry for the bad news; been there; done that…</p>
<p>Southwest permits you to ‘return’ a ticket for Southwest credit, which you can then use to repurchase different tickets. Other than that, you’re probably stuck.</p>
<p>If you spent $600 for three tickets chances are you purchased non-refundable tickets…which means no refunds. They can be changed, but generally at significant cost ($100-150 per ticket plus any increase in airfare from the original ticket). Airlines are not sympathetic to change of plans when you have purchased these ‘cheap’ seats. Only those who purchase full-price unrestricted fares (which are VASTLY more expensive) can get full refunds.</p>
<p>Probably depends on the airline and on the rule for the particular ticket you purchased. Several years ago I bought a ticket through priceline to go home to the UK and visit my father who had had a stroke. While I was there he died (which I had not expected - my brother was a little in denial so had not conveyed quite how bad it was). The funeral was scheduled for the day after I was scheduled to fly home (thank you step mommy dearest). The airline would not budge on any changes and I had to buy a whole new ticket - on another airline needless to say. Now I always make sure a ticket is at least changeable even if there is a fee.</p>
<p>Wow Swimcat… When my dad died they offered discounts for bereavement fares. Fortunately I have never had to do that kind of flying since, but I have to admit there was some humor in the handing out of the death certificate that the airline required to obtain the refund.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, not Southwest, which is one reason I do use mostly Southwest. I did research refundable tickets and they were a thousand apiece as opposed to the hundred apiece I got. I sent an email to Northwest and they did advise that I try an exchange online. While awaiting a reply, I tried this and even found flights but in the end it told me I had to call them. So I’m back to square one. Ugh!</p>
<p>On the bereavement note, my husband and I had taken a train to Atlanta and were planning to take a train back. While there, my grandmother passed away and the funeral was before my train back. I called the airline and told them of my plight, but they gave me no break. I paid a huge amount to fly home for my grandmother’s funeral, and this was over 20 years ago. Hopefully, the rules have changed some. </p>
<p>If I can’t get an exchange, does anyone know of any service out there that buys cheap unused tickets, like StubHub and TicketExchange do for sports events?</p>
<p>Oh, that’s right. Forgot about that, our names are on them. Plane travel is a lot different than baseball tickets.</p>
<p>Oh, well, it was just a thought.</p>
<p>Hopefully I can talk to a live person and get some help. </p>
<p>I almost bought travel insurance, but there were very strict guidelines as to what they would refund. Too late now, but I wonder if this would have fallen under a permissible refund. Might be something to look into for the future, or advice for those of you booking these nonrefundable visit flights.</p>
<p>Just updating this post, as I have talked to the airline, and want to post this so others can learn from my mistake.</p>
<p>As an above poster stated, the exchange fee for EACH TICKET FOR EACH PERSON IS $150. Since my tickets cost less than this each, the tickets are thrown away. So, I’ll have to eat the $600.</p>
<p>But in all humility, I will share some stupid mistakes I made so others can learn from them.</p>
<p>In trying to get the best times, I booked my up and coming back tickets as separate tickets. Had I booked them as roundtrip tickets, my tickets would be worth 200 bucks, so I would have at least a 50 dollar credit toward future travel for a year. True, I did not book the flights separately to save a few dollars. I was working with already purchased tickets one way and trying to work things out logistically, as the school we were trying to visit is very far away and had very limited flights available from our region. It was very difficult to get connecting flights that were spaced far enough apart to give us a reasonable chance of making our connection. In a previous visit to this school, we had actually missed a connection and were stuck in a hotel that we had to pay for for an extra day.</p>
<p>I have booked my flights to the full scholarship competition through a refundable airline, which actually has many flights to the new school, and if we can’t go, at least I know I’ll get my money back on these tickets. </p>
<p>So, learn from my mistake. I know sometimes it can’t be avoided. Sometimes the only flights you can get are from a nonrefundable airline. But keep this in mind, find out first what the cancellation policies are and book your flights as a round trip, not separately, to increase your chance of having some credit should your plans change.</p>
<p>Take care and good luck to all of you in the college process.</p>