Should she reimburse people for travel to her called-off wedding?

[DiosaBellissima]

@hajario

@DianaG

Hotels can usually be cancelled with no penalty up to 24 hours in advance. Flights, not so much.

Not if they’re booked on an internet site like Orbitz or Travelocity.

Any time I book through such sites, I opt in for their nominal travel insurance (trip assurance, whatever they want to call it) fee- $10 or $15-- covers last minute cancellations for any reason, lost luggage, etc. I think everybody should do this, because even on a $200 ticket or $50 hotel, it’s a nominal fee for peace of mind. If you didn’t. . . well, this is the type of thing trip insurance is for.

@prettydorky

@DiosaBellissima

There is no such thing as a totally non refundable ticket.

From my travel agent days I can tell you that there exists, in fact, a “use it or lose it” bargain fare on most major airlines. They farm the tickets out to travel sites like Expedia, Hotwire, et cetera- and you get zip for cancelling- but these are relatively rare clearance fares and usually accompanied with BIG RED letters stating all bookings are final.

Outside of that exception, very few standard fares are refundable as in getting your money back. As Diosa said, most airlines allow you to retain credit for the value of your ticket less the change fees.

Innnnnteresting. I buy probably half of my tickets directly through airlines and the other half through travel depot websites (Orbitz, Kayak, etc.). I’ve never run across this (even the airline bottom line tickets that are “OMG NON REFUNDABLE” usually say they’ll exchange it out in tiny tiny print, from what I’ve seen), but I’ll definitely defer to you here, since you were an agent!