Originally Posted by
jsloan
WN's policy is the same as UA's -- for nonrefundable tickets, you can apply the balance to a future travel upon payment of the fare difference and change fee. If there's extra left over, you can use it for further travel. The only difference between UA and WN is that WN's change fee is $0.
This is my take - since you have the entire amount to use on a new ticket, including previous government fees/taxes, the $ would be used down the line toward both the fare and taxes/fees for the new ticket. TSA fees included.
The only time this really would come into play is if the reservation and the credit expired. COC seems to still address this (it’s non-refundable), which is of course a policy, not a matter of the law from the perspective of the government. If someone really wanted to test it, I guess they could try filing a lawsuit. Whoever is interested in taking that on, good luck to you!
I also wonder if this this is why UA insists on change fee in new $ - to make it easier internally to separate all these fare/fee $ without having a credit wade into it. I realize it’s not a big deal, but could see why it would be easier for the dept. that handles it. Just a guess.
Originally Posted by
scracer14
Interesting discussion for sure. The TSA fee had me thinking. Since 100% of tickets sold incur the fee, even miles tickets, but we know not 100% of tickets are actually flown, the TSA essentially gets a windfall anytime someone doesn't show or cancels thier flight.
Then again I also thought it was interesting how in the Govt shutdown they couldn't pay the TSA agents, but they sure as heck kept collecting the TSA fees for each ticket...
was wondering this too. Costs of TSA screening is supposed to be paid for by pax with the TSA fee, so was unclear how that worked exactly.
Obviously though, TSA is part of homeland security, which had no authorization for funding. Also wonder if the TSA fee is meant to cover the actual screening process (I.e, equipment, management of process, etc.), but the actual salaries are covered from he DHS/TSA authorizes budget.