Hi- I'm new to this and usually fly on cheap tickets, even for work. Which American Airlines fare is refundable and economy as needed by the company paying for my ticket?

It is market by market. And be careful as some fares may be refundable but have a service fee to change/cxl

Welcome to FT.

​​​​​​​When you are booking the ticket on aa.com, choose the flexible option. Then on the fare grid, you have the flexible and fully flexible. Fully flexible should be completely unrestricted with no fees for refund.

The vast majority of Flexible fares do not have a fee for refund (if there is one, it will be listed in Fare Rules under Penalties section) and there is no need in most cases to upfare to Fully Flexible (which can be substantially more money than Flexible fares) if you just want a fare that is refundable without fees. The primary difference between Flexible and Fully Flexible fares is that Fully Flexible fares do not have advance purchase requirements and can generally be changed up to departure without incurring fare difference charges. If you want to change a Flexible fare (instead of just refunding it), you will often encounter charges for fare differences should you no longer meet original advance purchase requirements for the Flexible fare you purchased.

When it comes to changing flights, booking class availability can also be a factor and you may have to pay fare difference in the event there is no longer fare booking class availability in your originally booked flights in the new flights you are attempting to change to (even if you still meet advance purchase requirements for originally booked fare).

Be careful when booking flexible "refundable" fares.

I was booking a ticket for a friend who is on a Mexican passport on AA.com for a flight to/from Mexico. After selecting a refundable ticket, it would say something like "This person is a Mexican national. Certain taxes are waived." And then it reduces the fare (removing some taxes that Mexicans are exempt from for Mexico travel). However, when it did that, it turned the refundable fare into nonrefundable.

I found out the problem happens when using the Apple Safari web browser, but it does not happen on Google Chrome.

To be 100% sure, put the fare on hold and call AA. Ask them if the fare is 100% refundable without any fees. They will check for you. However, for some reason, it will take them over 10 minutes to check. I am not sure why AA doesn't make it easy to check if a fare is 100% refundable or not.

I also don't get why AA.com doesn't make it clear if a fare is refundable or not. Why look though the complicated, confusing legalese of the fare rules?

If you dont want to check the fare rules, then the only fully refundable tickets are the Fully Flexible fares which can be a lot more than the Flexible.

That said, most Flexible fares are fully refundable but with many junk fees associated with changing dates because it carries many embargo periods. However if travel not started and you want a change, the best approach is just cancel the ticket, get full refund, then buy what you now need.

I use a quick and dirty way to go thru the Fare Rules, which, AA makes it SO ANNOYING to find as it do not show up until the Last Screen and in tiny clickable bubble. All you need to look for $ and figures in the Refund section. If you dont see any, it is fairly certain there is no fee to cancel on fully unused ticket before travel.

If it's a domestic flight, all the "Flexible" fares are refundable with no fee. There's no need to upfare to "Fully Flexible" fares which have no advance purchase requirement if you just want the ability to cancel and get a full refund prior to flight on domestic flights. Flexible fares with a fee to refund are only found on certain international routes. While fees for refund will be called out in Fare Rules in Penalties section, you can often also identify them simply from the fare basis codes. In the case of TATL fares, AA refundable fares with no fee for refund will end in a 9, while AA refundable fares with a fee will end in a 3.

A lot of people seem to want to make things more complicated than they actually are. The magic words for refundable fares in the fare rules is "Cancellations Permitted" in the Penalties section. This language for refundable fares is common across all airlines (not just AA). If it says Cancellation Permitted and there are no fees listed for refund in Penalties section, it is fully refundable with no fees. In some cases, you need to cancel before departure or the fare becomes non-refundable. This will also be called out in fare rules. In the case shown below for the MLX7T0M9 fare, you can still get a refund if you wait until after departure to cancel as indicated by the allowance for refunds in "NO-SHOW" cases.