The bereavement fare policy isn’t designed to give a discount over the best fare currently available. It’s there to protect you with an upper limit on price if a relative dies at a time when flights are heavily booked and the cheapest short notice ticket is very expensive. It’s basically an override to the pricing algorithms that increase prices substantially as a flight fills up, think of it as an override to “surge pricing”.
I have heard that airlines will sometimes waive the fee for changing or canceling a ticket. For example, if you bought a ticket in June to visit your grandmother in October and then she died a week before the flight, they might let you cancel the ticket without a fee and refund the full price you paid. But the OP situation doesn’t seem like it would qualify for anything like that.
Yes, airline tickets are sold to a specific person and they are non-transferable. I have heard stories where passengers are denied boarding because the name on the ticket doesn’t quite match the name on the ID. For example, Susie Ann Johnson marries David Williams and goes by Susie Johnson-Williams. Then she shows up at the airport with a ticket that says Susie Johnson-Williams but her driver’s license says “Williams, Susie Johnson” and they won’t let her on the plane. It’s hard to believe that as recent as 20 years ago a man could buy two tickets that said “David Williams” and “Mrs. David Williams”, then show up with a woman who claimed to be his wife and they’d let both people on board the plane without even checking IDs. That was key to the plot of the movie Random Hearts.
Ted Rall is a “third”, with a roman numeral III after his name. He tells a story where they almost wouldn’t let him only a plane because his ID had the III and his ticket didn’t.
I had this almost happen to me. In another thread I mentioned a day trip from Johannesburg to Port Elizabeth. The supplier wanted me to meet me, so he paid for the flight. Unfortunately I have my email setup with my common name (“Jim”) rather than my passport name (“James”), so that’s the ticket he bought for me. Luckily the Jo-burg employee convinced security to let me on. I was more worried about coming back, but no one blinked an eye.
Yeah, you would think an arm of the company called “customer service” would be able to help you out in some fashion. Unfortunately, non-refundable tickets are sold that way and the airline apparently doesn’t want to crack the door on reasonable excuses to refund money. Did you try working your way up the CS chain to a manager or supervisor?
This is one of those things that someone in a coma since the 1970s simply wouldn’t understand. Airline tickets used to be like vouchers or seat tickets that could be freely given away, traded or sold. Or cancelled with a full refund.
My understanding is that the default tickets today (for example, full fare Y class tickets) are like tickets sold pre-1970s – that is, they are refundable. However, the tickets that most people buy today are discounted tickets, with restrictions like those described by the OP. Hopefully someone in the industry can clarify that for me.
Yes, excellent point. Back in the day, cheap seats used to be called “Super Saver” tickets. They came with all sorts of restrictions. You have to stay over a Saturday. You have to buy the tickets 30 days in advance. The tickets are non-refundable. You can’t make any changes unless you pay a hefty fine. Sure, you can still get refundable tickets today at “full price”, especially if you fly first class. Then you can make changes or even get a refund. We’ve gotten so used to the idea of buying the cheapest possible ticket that we’ve forgotten that those discount tickets have restrictions on them.
Someone who awoke from a coma would also be amazed to discover that airline travel costs half what it did in the 1970s. I guess I’m puzzled by the common sentiment that airlines are always trying to trick us or dupe us to scam us out of oodles or money and make our lives unpleasant and inconvenient. Airline travel is vastly cheaper, safer and more efficient than it was 30 years ago. It’s extremely competitive and margins are razor thin. Part of the reason for the low cost is giving people incentive to plan ahead with non-refundable tickets, so that the airlines can also plan ahead, and provide the service more cheaply. It’s not like they are trying to trick you - if you want a refundable ticket, you can pay the premium to buy one.
And why would it surprise you that they will give you a break for bereavement, but are reluctant to just let anyone with a sob story have their money back? Do you think people are generally honest about these things, or would literally every single person who bought a non-refundable ticket and wanted to change their plans be calling up with a story? That’s not to say that OP doesn’t have a genuine case, but I wouldn’t expect them to just say yes right away.
Yeah, that’s true. There is still the option to buy refundable tickets.
It doesn’t surprise me, and in fact I understand the airline position regarding cancellation and refunds. Having said that, I think tickets should be transferable, even if they are not refundable. The seats (like ball game, concerts, etc.) were bought and paid for and should be transferable.
When I buy my tickets using my ordinary no-annual-fee Citicard, trip cancellation is included, and I have been reimbursed for a cancelled travel with a non-refundable ticket. The insurer used by the card company judges whether the reason for the cancellation is covered. Doesn’t even need to be a ticket in my name. In paid for my wife’s ticket with my card, and her medical condition turned for the worse and her doctor would not authorize her to travel. I was reimbursed.
Transferable tickets would mean a secondary market that the airlines do not control. Scalpers would buy up tickets on spec to resell them. I think that’s a terrible idea.
Could be. But 40 years ago when I knew about it, the reason the airlines didn’t want a secondary market was because they partitioned the market to make more profit by higher markup.
So you couldn’t buy a ticket in NYC and sell it to a traveler in Sydney, because it Sydney they charged more for the same ticket.
(And airlines scalp their own tickets now, so I’m not sure that keeping the scalpers out is helping anyone.)
You mean like in Airplane II The Sequel?
What blows my mind about that clip is that people thought smoking might be allowed on the Lunar Shuttle. Virgin Galactic is just now ramping up for sub-orbital tourist flights and we haven’t allowed smoking on airplanes for twenty years.
But, yes, I agree that making tickets transferable would lead to scalping and I’m glad we don’t have that.
If scalpers could resell tickets it would bring the prices down for consumers in many cases. When the plane takes off any tickets a scalper is still holding would be a complete loss for them. They would accept whatever they could get as the time of the flight drew nearer regardless of what the current airline price was. Their prices would be falling even as the airline was raising the prices for seats on the same flights.
The airline is taking very little risk in raising prices as the flights fill up. Scalpers would be offering their soon to be useless tickets, for which they paid the earlier lower fares, for whatever they could get. That would be very bad for the airlines but often very good for consumers.
Domestic airlines make over $3 billion in ticket change fees annually. If not for the above they would be more than happy to allow unlimited transfers for additional fees. But presumably they make much more by controlling the inventory and raising prices as the demand for given flights allows it.
I don’t think so. The reason that you have scalping in sports & entertainment is that the primary market prices the tickets far too low for the demand. This happens for a couple of reasons.
It makes an artist or sports team look good when they sell out a venue, and that enhances their image. Image is very important for entertainers.
The entertainers do not want to harm that image by appearing to exploit their audiences and charge a huge amount. The Stones could probably sell out an arena with $1000 tickets. Springsteen could do that, but instead he is offering a small number of tickets to sold-out concerts on Broadway for $75.
Scalpers are taking advantage of the difference in the asking price vs. the true market value.
Airplane seats have a whole different set of economics. They are priced entirely based on supply and demand and have no reason to keep prices artificially low.