Online Travel Booking and Bidding Agencies - Getting any value out of this non-refundable/non-alterable ticket?

So, about three months ago, for visa-related reasons (I am an American who lives and works in Japan), I purchased a round-trip (probably technically open-jaw) ticket from Orbitz, from NRT to Newark, and then returning via JFK. It was about $1400 total. I didn't end up having to leave the country, and so I put the ticket aside thinking I could just change the date later on to schedule it for when I could get time off work.

Flash forward to now, when I remembered this week to call and try to change the date. Well, no dice--apparently I didn't read the not-so-fine-print and the ticket cannot be changed. Use it or lose. Of course, I'm supposed to leave on Friday and there is no way I can go for work-related and other reasons.

Anyways, the flight is technically a Continental flight, I guess, with codeshare on ANA. I'm wondering at this point what I can do to avoid losing all money entirely on this ticket 'cause that would really, really suck. But of course I guess in the end this is my dumb fault for not understanding what I was purchasing when I purchased it.

Oh, and if it matters I bought it with a Discover Escape card--so if any of you know any ways to that may help I'd love to hear it.

Thanks for any help you can provide!

Best,
D

Welcome to FT!

So you called Expedia to try and change it and they said no? Even with nonrefundable tickets, you can usually cancel, pay the airline's change fee (around $250 for most international tickets) and the third party site's change fee, and get a voucher for the remaining value.

If that doesn't work, I certainly would try calling the airline directly and seeing if you can cancel and pay the change fee to try and salvage some value. It doesn't hurt.

Hi,

This is Kristi, and I am part of the Orbitz Customer Relations team. We want to learn more about your experience so that we can address the issue. Please email us at socialnetwork@orbitz.com and include your Orbitz record locator and email address. Please use my name in the subject line, so that I can investigate further. Thank you or your patience, I look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,

Kristi
Orbitz Customer Relations
Chicago, IL

I would also check with the airline what the change fee is and perhaps lose that, as opposed to the whole value of the ticket. Most of the cheapest tickets are non-refundable, so if you want to change dates, you would have to lose a nominal change fee which is around $150 to $250.