Episode 12: How To Guarantee Flight Credit From a Canceled Trip
If you know, you know by now that it’s been a journey to get flight credit back for my trips. It’s tiring, frustrating, and stressful, and we don’t need that. Something that I am always going to do from now on is book the next level-up for flights to ensure I can change my flight whenever. In today’s episode, we are going to make sure you never fall for those cheap, non-refundable flights, unless you, of course, want to book those and it’s at your own risk! Hi everyone, it’s The Brooklynite Abroad, and welcome to another episode of The Just Book It podcast. Be sure to follow the Just Book It Podcast for more travel-related stories, news, tips & inspiration you need to jet-set!
When you purchase a flight, there are about three options (sometimes airlines have more than three). You have the lowest fare, which is super appealing (not anymore), but USED to be appealing to save a few bucks. Then you have the next level up which typically allows you to pick your own seat, and make flight changes & is around $100 or more than the lower level. Lastly, you have the upper level, which is usually the Business class. This one is significantly more and unless it’s a really long flight & you managed to get a free upgrade or use travel points to purchase it, I wouldn’t really consider it! A lesson I learned about five times the hard way is always to buy the flight that allows you to change your ticket. For typically $100 more, to get that sense of security if your trip doesn’t go as planned. Say you get sick or there is a war or a natural disaster, you want the luxury to ensure your money is not wasted. Now every time I have been able to talk to the representatives about getting a basic economy flight to help them get me flight credit. Typically, you ask them to ask if you can get upgraded to Main Cabin (whichever the higher tier is). The supervisor I spoke to at American Airlines said that she will always grant this change so if you’re talking to someone that “doesn’t allow it”, if there is a will, there is a way. Something else I noticed is to talk to call multiple times since just about every time I call, they tell me different things.
For my trip to Colombia, I ended up getting the Main Cabin flight and was able to change the flight a good three times and I was never given a hard time about it. I needed to make sure I was on the same flight as my boyfriend so changed the times and ended up extending the trip an extra day and they were super helpful about it. From my experience talking to many (and I mean many) representatives and supervisors, they are very eager to help you. In fact, they want to help you, but you have to make sure you don’t make their job harder. Honestly, just save yourself time and money and the hassle and get the next-level flight.
Understanding Airline’s Flight Tiers
So I’m going to go into the basic rundown of the top four airlines in the United States.
- For American Airlines. When you purchase a flight you have three options for flights. Basic Economy, Main Cabin & Main Plus. The main thing you need to know is that Main Cabin allows you to change the flight for a. possible fare difference. So say you are going to purchase another flight for a different day and it’s $20 more, you’ll be expected to pay the difference. For example, on this flight, I found to Miami, it is only an additional $20 to save yourself time and money. The prices changed from when I posted this so here is the updated one. When you think about how much time and energy you’d be saving, this is worth it, I mean it’s a no-brainer. For my flight to Colombia, it was $100 more but saved SO much time and stress. This is something I had to learn the hard way because I have had a lot of trips canceled recently.
- Check out more details here: https://www.aa.com/i18n/plan-travel/extras/fares-and-trip-options.jsp.
- For Jet Blue, there are three options as well. Blue Basic, Blue & Blue Extra. For Blue Basic, you get no refunds & not even a carry-on bag. Based on this alone, JetBlue is giving the incentive to get the upgrade so it comes with the carry-on & the ability to change your flight if necessary. Getting Blue also allows you free carry-on which is a no-brainer since paying for a carry-on would be more than paying to get a flight change if need be. It doesn’t really seem as though there is a difference between Blue & Blue Extra so I’d focus on getting Blue. For Jet Blue, there are no change or cancellation fees for Blue, Blue Plus, and Mint fares on all routes. From their website for Blue Basic, (their lowest tier), “it’s subject to a change/cancel fee of $100 for travel within North America, Central America, or the Caribbean, or $200 for all other routes. Fare difference and fare rules on the date of change apply.” So essentially, if you just got the Blue from the beginning you’d avoid these extra costs if you need to change the flight. Check out more details here: https://www.jetblue.com/flying-with-us/our-fares
- For Delta, it’s the same deal. Delta is my preferred airline. They have the best deals and I really like the things they offer, the experience & the free carry-on. I got the Delta-Amex credit card which gave me a sign-on bonus of 70,000 bonus miles when you spend $2000 in the first six months and now the promotion is 60,000. On the American Express website, the deal is better than on Delta so I’d look into that too! Overall, for your earning rewards, you get 2x the miles per dollar spent with Delta, restaurants, takeouts, and supermarkets & $1 for every dollar spent on purchases. Basically, I like to use this card for restaurants and grocery bills. It’s very typical for travelers to stick to one airline to reap the frequent flyer benefits. I’m going to really focus on taking more Delta flights which offer great deals around the USA & Europe, which are places I go to often! Back to the flights, so for Delta, the lowest class gets the most restrictions. I have noticed on Google Flights that Delta offers Main Cabin on their flight options so they’re not always offering the lowerest flights. Their website states, “Basic Economy (E-booking class) is a value-fare option for price-driven customers. When you purchase Basic Economy, you typically will enjoy our lowest fare. Still, seats will be assigned after check-in and you will not be able to change or refund your ticket after the Risk-Free Cancellation period.” [So this airline is great because you have 24 hours from the purchase of your flight to cancel.] “Tickets are non-changeable and non-refundable but may be canceled before departure for a cancellation charge. Any remaining value is issued as a credit.” So this airline is great because you have 24 hours from the purchase of your flight to cancel. I’d be careful and just stick with Main Cabin. For more info, check it out here. https://www.delta.com/us/en/booking-information/fare-classes-and-tickets/fares-and-discounts
- United is similar to Delta in that they offer a budget option with restrictions, but mostly publicize their higher tier on Google Flights. For Basic Economy, refunds are not allowed. If you find Basic Economy too restricting, you can purchase the Economy status, which I feel is typical for most airlines. Based on their website, “If you’ve already purchased a Basic Economy ticket but find it too restrictive, you may have the option to add the benefits of a United Economy® fare for a service charge. This will allow you to enjoy many of the features of United Economy, including The option to change or cancel your flight without paying a change fee. For more info, check it out here! https://www.united.com/ual/en/us/fly/travel/inflight/cabin/economy.html
There You Have It?
I think it’s important to understand how the airlines work, publicize, and if you’re going to hone in on one airline that you really like, I’d buy their credit card and each airline has a specific region. If you’re looking to get flights in the future for x destination, look into which airline, and see if you can get the credit card. For this podcast, I only focused on the 4 main United States airlines, American Airlines, Delta, JetBlue & United, but the same idea applies to the other airlines as well. It’s important to look into the fine print and if you’re unsure, call the airlines!
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