Refund fare difference
 

Maybe you guys already knew this, and I am just the last one to know this sort of stuffs. My wife and I bought the ticket 10 days ago (IAH-FLL) at 380 each (pretty expensive for such a flight but we "have to" go there for some family reunion event. Yesterday, I decided to just check again and see if the fare is still that high, it turned out that for the same fare class (Q), same flight and time, the fare dropped to $307, which is more reasonable for this routing. So, I called CO, without any expectation to get anything back, but wanted to ask why the heck this is happening. They said since this is within 30 days from the purchase date, I am eligible to get the $73 back but need to be deducted $50. So, they refunded me in a form of TCV for $23 each.

I guess this policy has been in place for a while? :confused: Is there somewhere I can read how this policy is spelled out?

Normally fare differences need to exceed $150 in order to see any refund, since most change fees are that much. Then again, maybe your IAH-FLL flight was in a different fare class, with a smaller change fee?

By the way, fares change. A lot. All the time. Without rhyme or reason (to those of us outside of revenue mgmt). But with so many posts, and as a frequent flyer, surprised you didn't know this.

Thanks for the clarification. It just somehow never happened to me, I always see fare going up and up as it gets closer to the date (except those last minute or special offer deals), and unfortunately, no I never knew about this possible refund either until today. :)

You called Reservations with a Revenue Management question. You will not get a useful answer. Of course the generic answer is that fares go UP and DOWN all the time.
As for the partial refund, I vaguely recall hearing something about that here a while back, but I could be hallucinating. Consider yourself lucky. Alternatively, consider flying Jetblue which always gives you a credit voucher (for the full amount) if the fare drops. I assume you can do the same on Southwest.

CO's policy is that you pay the change fee in new money and you get a voucher for the fare difference. If you only had a $50 change fee and they simply deducted that from the voucher issued you got lucky at two levels.

They won't accept new money, they could only deduct $50 from the fare difference and refund me via TCV on the rest. I did insist on paying the $50 with new money so that the TCV would be easier to use, but they wouldn't let me.

Did they give you an electronic travel certificate? I'm trying to figure out how they work and can be redeemed. Is it correct to assume that you can redeem it if you know the certificate number and PIN?

Yeah, that's basically all you need. You type it in on the payments screen and it adjusts the total cost you have to pay with other funds. Really quite easy to do.

im sure this is going to rub people the wrong way. BUT, I bet the way CO does it is fairly cost effective for the airline and for us. Remember when you buy a ticket on CO you are getting a seat, on other airlines, you are getting a space in line.

Also, I would love to think if someone cancels, that CO will offer the lower fare when I need to buy at last minute. With JB SW whatever, when they offer a blanket refund the difference policy, I'm guessing they don't ever lower the fares.

I found out tonight that all you need to know is the PIN. I followed the advice in the FAQ and got my ticket issued for a $25 change fee (new money) and a $50 throw away ticket that was deducted from the face value of the original ticket. All I can add to the FAQ is don't go to the airport to do any of this. Waste of time.

Huh? :confused: Is this just an awkward, oblique reference to the WN boarding policy?

You may wish to think that, but I doubt you're correct.
Not at all true. There is plenty of evidence that they do from time to time. Sometimes it is actually a new, lower fare being published. Other times it is a cheaper inventory bucket opening up. But it happens all the time.

Yes, they provided me the PIN over the phone while they also mailed me the printed copy of the TCV. Btw, the change fee for my original ticket was 150, and not 50. Somehow, with this reduction in fare (I noticed this across many routings), the rebate of the frae difference only requires $50, but it has to be within 30 days of purchase.

I just don't think it is correct for passengers who bought tickets prior to March 15, and paid a lot higher fare on the same routings (same fare class and same dates), and ended up having to pay $50 to get the remaining refund. Early March, I wanted to buy two separate tickets from Houston to Honolulu and Houston to Los Angeles. The first came up at 800+ while the second one was 400+, and I decided to postpone the trips. I knew from my last year trips, a ticket to Honolulu (S, W, V fares) normally cost around 550-650. And W fare to LAX never exceeded +/- 320. And then here it is after March 15, both routings go back to the price range I bought last year (same dates as per my original plan). I just bought one to HNL at 600 (end of May) and one to LAX in June at 300 something. Only if I bought them prior to March, I would have to pay another $100 to get a small refund. How is this reasonable?

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry9630/5.0.0.591 Profile/MIDP-2.1 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/105)

If you knew the price was going to drop then why didi you buy the higher priced ticket?

Fares change all the time for a variety of reasons. The airlines could just set one price for all seats but it would quite likely be much higher than what you are talking about paying.

I bought my ticket 10 months ago and canceled the reservation about 2 weeks later. I was told then that I would have to pay a $150 fee to use that ticket for another reservation. But when I made the new reservation last week, the change fee was only $25. I did not ask why because I generally do not look gift horses in the mouth.