Dave Noble

That is no different to how AA operates

If making a change, not only does the change fee need to be paid, but any fare difference also needs to be paid

beachmouse

Yep. In my experience, the legacy carrier fare buckets are often flatter, for lack of a better word than what you get at WN, where there's a huge spike at the last minute BS level. For what I fly (domestic secondary and tertiary markets) , American is actually usually the best option for last minute flights or late changes, even with the change fee in addition to any repricing.

drvannostren

See for me it's not buyers remorse, of course one could use it for that, but in the two instances I've needed it were due to errors that they'd otherwise justify charging crazy amounts for.

Dave Noble

Did you just get the error fixed or did you get a refund of the ticket?

Not many people buy a ticket completely accidently - some do make a date/time type error and want to get that fixed but a refund seems just to be a buyers remourse situation

drvannostren

Agreed.

I bought the ticket again (correctly) after being refunded, because they didn't wanna change it over the phone, they said it was easier for them to just cancel.

But then my experience with Cebu Pacific was they would do neither. I needed to date fixed, they refused and wanted a fee that was more than the cost of the ticket. So I just had to buy the ticket again on the right date and paid for the same flight twice. So that's the problem. This carrier wouldn't permit a simple human error and instead their policy was "nope, you're screwed, deal with it".

Often1

All three legacy carriers have more "liberal" policies than the DOT rule requires. Many European carriers now offer a 24-hour cancellation without a requirement as well.

Somewhat akin to CC chargeback disputes. The law only requires 60 days, but many CC issuers permit significantly longer periods.

I suspect that carriers are OK with the 24-hours and likely won't push hard on this rule in any event. It's a lot easier to administer without paying agents to listen to lengthy tales of woe about who pushed the wrong send button.

mvoight

I personally don't think the airlines should have to compensate for weather issues.

pinniped

This is exactly what I often see. If I book very far in advance, especially during a Southwest sale (a legit one, that is), the best value is on Southwest. Often a relevant legacy competing nonstop will match the sale fare on paper, but Southwest will have it on more of their flights.

If I'm booking 14 to 21 days out, like I do with most of my business trips, it can go either way...sometimes WN is cheaper, sometimes it's AS or AA.

If I'm booking inside 7 days out, WN jumps straight to the AT/BS fares and AS or AA will often have a mix of other fares - pricey but usually less pricey than AT/BS. Sometimes by several hundred dollars.

I fly all of WN, AA, and AS pretty regularly. All have slightly different strategies and rules for pricing, change fees, standby, etc. It's hard to say one is always better than another, but if I *think* I'm going to need a benefit that one of them offers, I'll try to use that airline.

andersonCooper

Agree. Eventually the compensation will be passed to pax as a whole, resulting in inflated fare.

jordyn

In the EU, airlines don't have to "compensate" for weather-related disruption, but they do have a duty of care to make sure you have food, shelter, etc. if you get stuck while traveling. The airlines do have to compensate for delays within their reasonable control, downgrades, etc.

While it's true that this cost gets passed on to the customers, the analysis I've seen indicate that it's about 1-2% of the ticket price. That's a great deal relative to how much companies want to charge for flight insurance. Moreover, when airlines have some skin in the game they have a lot more incentive to make sure that flights operate reasonably rather than just claiming "weather" for every delay and externalizing the cost onto their customers.

azepine00

And it should be - i see the extra as an insurance which is much better handled through the airlines who are familiar with the subject vs the dominating majority of individual travelers.

ashill

Yeah. It's really a question of whether you have passengers self-insure by passing the direct cost of weather delays on to customers or have the airline cover the cost and therefore include it into their overall costs, which winds up as a factor in ticket prices.

I see the argument both ways, but your point about incentivizing airlines to have skin in the game is a good one. Also, airlines are probably better-equipped to deal with disrupted travel issues (including negotiated rates, which are simpler to just pay than futz with distressed traveler discounts) than your average customer (though not all customers; probably most FlyerTalkers are better-equipped to deal with disrupted travel themselves than airlines in many cases).

One potential counterargument is that that could potentially incentivize airlines to sacrifice safety a bit, but I just don't think that's a big concern because of the combination of regulation, good safety culture at most major airlines, and the direct and indirect (PR etc) costs to any airline of any significant accident.

andersonCooper

While not seeing similar analysis applicable to the U.S. carriers, I doubt a 1-2% will be sufficient. Say AA pays for 3rd party insurances to cover its liability, there will be a mark-up there for the 3rd party; If AA chooses not to hedge the risks by paying for 3rd party, then the additional "benefits" will come with a mark-up as well.

Then customers have the right to choose to opt-out, instead of being forced to pay. That's how the current travel insurance model works, and I am ok without it when I don't see the need to get insurance.

nrr

Doesn't much of this discussion lead to whether the old CAB system (the price from A to B on all carriers were the same, no extra fees for luggage (with some restrictions), the airlines competed on service*--as it should be) vs the current system, the airlines quote low ball prices and nickel and dime pax on nearly everything else), was better.
PS: most tickets were fully refundable.^
*a word not in AA's dictionary.

pinniped

I prefer the model where airlines compete. I believe the main regulation from government (as far as consumer protections go) should be to ensure competition exists, to combat deceptive advertising and practices, and to ensure some basic passenger rights akin to EU 261. I don't believe the government should set fares, mandate baggage allowance, or anything like that.

I love the fact that Spirit exists. They are super-transparent about what they are - you can't buy a ticket on on their website without knowing *exactly* what you're getting. They've done a MUCH better job at informing the public, with no apologies, what they offer than any legacy has done with their various sneaky rollouts of Basic Economy fares. I don't really want to actually *fly* Spirit, but I'm glad they're there.