Originally Posted by
triphop02120
People that have tickets and are going to travel (whether business or pleasure or whatever) is obviously fine... it's the ones that KNOW that they are NOT going to travel and buying a fully refundable ticket just to go wait with someone at the gate is what I find appalling. A small cancellation fee would most likely put an end to this ridiculous practice IMO. I'm frustrated because I've heard this quite often and can't believe they think that there's nothing wrong with it.
1) The whole point of a refundable ticket is that you're paying extra for the privilege of canceling with no penalty. A "small cancellation fee" would defeat that.
2) I am not the one who created the idiotic rules requiring a ticket and permission from the government in the form of ID/travel papers to get to the gate and forcing people to show up hours before their flight.
3) Buying and canceling a refundable ticket hurts nobody, particularly if you buy a ticket for the last flight of the night, print a boarding pass, and shortly thereafter cancel the ticket. The chances that someone will be denied travel as a result of this brief (1-2 hour) window are minuscule. And even then, it's more likely they would be denied cheaper travel than be denied travel at all, because many airlines are willing to sell full-fare tickets on nearly-oversold or actually-oversold flights.
Whenever I've bought a ticket for this purpose, I've bought a ticket on the latest available flight of the day and usually canceled it many hours before the actual flight.
Originally Posted by
whirledtraveler
Every once in a while, I look at full flights and wonder how many people are traveling for non-essential reasons like vacation, and how many of them are blocking people who have serious business needs for travel but are unable to get seats because of them. We should move to a "ticket by need" program as flights fill up.
Nonetheless, it would be an important step to bolster business in these trying times. I hope that the incoming administration appoints someone to the FAA who can draft the necessary regulation.
OMG are you serious???
That is exactly the type of socialist idea that I fear is going to take hold in the current climate of bailouts and handouts and with the left gaining so much ground in the executive and the legislature. What would you have, the Obama TSA collect information on "purpose of trip" and conditionally dole out travel permission based on the worthiness of the trip? Who is going to be on the committee that makes those decisions? Will they give preferential treatment to women and minorities, since it doesn't matter if white men get to fly? Will it be the same committee that gets to decide if my wife gets a pap smear or my mom gets a mammogram under their future single-payer healthcare system?
Folks, this is exactly the kind of scary thing that the Dems could do with the infrastructure DHS/TSA has put in place. The justification could be "tough times," "reducing global warming," or "think of the children who aren't getting to see their divorced parents in the summer." Very very frightening for those of us that actually love liberty.