Originally Posted by
velivolus
I was at the check in counter for the airline so it was definitely alaska. The lady at the counter also called in to customer service and consulted her supervisor. All said this was the airline policy and would not budge. To be honest I'm not entirely sure they knew what was what, they had clearly never encountered such a situation before - nevertheless I was forced to buy the ticket to board.
They did not mention who would fine me - I got the impression alaska themselves? But I do think it could very well have been a scare tactic. The lady at the counter I had to deal with was extremely rude and seemed to enjoy being short with people
I haven't checked, but I'm pretty sure that the U.S. DOT would not allow an airline to "fine" someone who cancelled a ticket within the permissible 24-hours-after-purchase full-refund period.
Should you ever encounter such a situation again, I would pull up the Timatic rules on a smartphone and show the rules to the agent.