... just eat the ticket and charge the contract. This is an allowable charge if the government customer directed that you not attend the meeting after they had directed you attend. Before I left the private sector last year, every single employee of mine who left before me (program got cancelled) had an unused non-refundable ticket the government had to eat. Between the 5 of us, the total cost to the taxpayers was easily $4000-$5000.

...just another sacrifice we have to pay for the War on Terror...