<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by VolleyballFerd:
If you have ever called an airline to purchase a ticket over the phone, then you probably know that they do not tell you the rules over the phone. You pay the money and are usually not told it is non-transferable.
I understand the policy, and have never run into any serious problem with it. However, it does bother me that I could plan a flight a month in advance for in a company. I cannot hold a seat for a generic person, I need to have a name. And if the person who will travel changes, I cannot simply call and say "change the name of the passenger".
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I don't know what airline you're calling, but AA reps always go through the basic rules - (1) change fee, (2) non-transferrable and (3) non-refundable. Though they know I have Platinum status (and thus should be relatively familiar with the rules) they always take the time to go through with them, even if I'm just making a reservation, not yet purchasing the tickets.
As far as transferrability - the less restrictive you want the rules to be, the less you pay. If you want the ultimate in freedom, you buy a full-Y ticket. If you want to save money, you buy a discount coach ticket, but agree to more rules. It's simple economics - you get what you pay for.
If the airlines didn't have such restrictive rules on their tickets, they'd lose a fortune. People would be calling every single day changing flights, dates, times, destinations, passengers, etc.. Each of those transactions costs the airlines money.
Let's not forget the airlines are in business. Of course they're trying to protect their revenue; they have owners who expect a reasonable rate of return on their investments. The hundreds of thousands of airline stockholders aren't wealthy philantropists, they're investors.
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