I recently planned a trip to San Francisco and bought both a ticket for myself and a friend. My friend can no longer go on the trip and I want to get her ticket transferred to another name. After talking to representatives from both the travel service I used and the airline (Continental), they both told me that the tickets are non-transferable. This leaves me in a terrible (though I'm sure not unique) situation where either me or my friend has to be out the cost of the ticket. The airline said that she could be credited the cost of another flight on the same airline, but a fee would still be applied as well. I am just wondering if there is any way to get around this or whether a name change on the ticket is even necessary for another friend to go instead. From what I understand, the airlines have this policy due to economic, and not security, reasons.

Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated! Thanks.

That's probably the best you can hope for. When you buy a discounted ticket, they come with restrictions, and both you and the airline have to live with the fine print. If the travel was in doubt, your friend could have purchased a higher priced ticket that would have more liberal refund rules, but likely would have cost a lot more.

Years ago anyone could fly on the ticket because ID was not checked within the U.S. for domestic travel. I remember seeing university bulletin boards with tickets for sale for male or female travelers. You can't do that any longer since ID is now checked.

Your only other options would have been trip insurance, or a significant schedule change where the airline might allow you to cancel the ticket.

Welcome to FlyerTalk

Technically, you don't need to show valid ID either to the airline or the TSA, but you'll be set for secondary screening. So as long as the other person is of the same sex as the original pax (or the other name could work for them), then you could probably make it without incident.

However, you would be breaking airline rules, so you're on your own if you get caught trying to circumvent them. While said airline rules aren't laws, you agreed to them through the contract of carriage by purchasing the tickets.

If you want the safe way to go, have the airline refund the cost of the ticket minus the fee (last time I did this on AA it was a $100 fee), and have your other friend buy a new ticket.

One important thing to remember...and this might help you understand the airline's point of view...is that on your flight there will be several business travelers paying probably 5-8x what you paid for your ticket. These people are the airline's bread and buter. They generally have short notice schedules, need lots of flexibility, and are in a situation such that their time is worth extra fees to enable them to return to work/families/whatever at as fast as possible.

If people could change names on tickets, a company based in, say, Austin with a large account in, say, Denver then they could just purchase 4 tickets a day at $69 each way and change names for whatever person was traveling to/from that client. Instead, and because of this rule, the consultancy is forced to purchase flexible tickets for Joe to fly Moday - Thursday and Mary to fly Tuesday - Friday at $499 each way.