Originally Posted by
warakorn
I would seriously advise not to accept such vouchers.
The voucher can only redeemed with the issueing airline.
These vouchers are useless, if you catch a good on a codeshare (operated by the issueing airline, but sold by another airline) or if a consolidator (via an OTA) sells a good fare. Airline-owned booking sites do not see all available fares (which a Kayak meta search machine can see).
It's not 100% clear whether a phone booking will be waived if the voucher cannot be redeemed online.
A EUR 600 cash payment does not expire, can be booked for other people, can be used for other airlines (and codeshares) ..... etc etc
Sure but if you already know you're going to be spending > €600 on a AF/KL flight later in the year, then suddenly the €800 voucher is a better option than €200 less in cash.
My mother and father for example were delayed last year because of mx in HKG and, already knowing they were going to go to back a few months later for a cruise but not having bought tickets for that yet, happily took the €800 voucher instead which covered the entire flight for both of them.