ynotzzz

Quick story... and a cautionary tale...

My sister and her husband were scheduled to fly out of ORD today for DFW. They were going to relax for a few days before enjoying the football semifinal bowl game this Thursday (they are both Mich st alums). They also are infrequent flyers, and were unprepared for what was about to happen...

Due to the icy weather their flight was cancelled (along with most/all others) so they called to rebook. They were told that the the next available flight was Friday (!) at which point they started panicking since the game was Thursday night. The agent also very "kindly" offered them a full refund for the flight.

While my brother-in-law was starting to process the refund I got a call from my sister explaining the situation, and told them to "WAIT!". I jumped online and found a number of alternative flights that would have gotten them to DFW in time for the game that the agent very conveniently overlooked. Perhaps it had to do with the fact that these flights were all selling for a very high amount.

I quickly threw out some alternative flights for my brother-in-law to ask about, at which point the agent sweetened the pot with a "one time offer" of a $300 voucher in exchange for cancelling the flight. My brother-in-law didn't have the patience to get into any kind of back-and-forth so he just said "fine" and essentially gave up his vacation (with hotels, cars, and tickets already bought) in exchange for the refund and a voucher. I couldn't believe it.

They very optimistically decided they would use the voucher to go somewhere else last minute (haha) but now it's sinking in that nothing is available or that prices are stratospheric.

To the AA veterans - what would you have done in this scenario? What would have been an appropriate voucher amount in exchange for canceling the trip?