Advice on changing travel plans! (Minimizing airline fees, etc.)

[U2brad]

First, I too wish Bono blessings for a complete and speedy recovery!

But now, during this time of travel plan-changing nightmares, what has your experience been?

Any advice for the rest of us on how to minimize the financial cost of today's news? (ie. Any way to avoid/reduce those enormous $200-$300 airline change fees??)

 

[alison0313]

Thanks for this post..

I'm wondering if anyone has had any luck getting priceline to bend their rules and offer a credit at least.

I also need to call air Canada but I'm broke and can't afford the change fee. Blah

hope everyone changing their travel plans has good luck

 

[Pop Artist]

My experience with Priceline and Hotwire is that they will only make a "one-time" exception is if, within a day or two of booking, you discovered you accidentally booked the wrong date, or the wrong number of days, and they will still hold some of the refund until you rebid with the right dates. They are very upfront that when you buy it that you can't cancel - an event that gets canceled won't do it.

 

[zuropa_fit]

I bought travel insurance from travelocity and it doesn't cover "major injury to rock star" American Airlines is taking $150 of the cost of my ticket - the rest will be a credit with them. Talk to a person, whomever you call, don't just go the automated route. That's the only advice I can offer. Sorry.

 

[4U2Play]

I booked hotels via Hotwire.com and cannot get any kind of refund on them.

However, car rentals booked through Hotwire were cancellable, since they were never charged in the first place.

Delta Airlines charges a $150 "change" fee, with the balance of your ticket cost being applicable toward future flights until February 2011.

Southwest Airlines does not any kind of fee, your total ticket amount gets credited toward a future flight to be taken by December 22, 2010 (Vegas, here we come).

I love you, Southwest.

Screw you, Delta.

 

[DRay9911]

+ w/southwest...no change fee
- w/southwest...you get a year credit from time of original purchase

i purchased two of my flights in mid-march, probably out $400 unless i can resell the credit

 

[chels82]

I spoke to Alaska Airlines yesterday for my flight to Seattle, it's outrageous if you need to change things but they do allow you to take credit. I'm still going to Seattle but I don't need to fly out of Oakland now. Either way, it's $200 plus $75 for fees. The Ramada in Seattle also will not let me cancel my reservation but I can transfer it to another city/date.

 

[U2brad]

it's $200 plus $75 for fees.

Do you mean that the change fee is $75? ... or $275??

 

[alison0313]

I booked my flight through orbitz.com, I've been using them for years without any issues. They can give me a credit on my flight if I pay $101 but I'd have to use the flight by November 2 of this year

Between my flight and hotel I'd be losing over $800 if I don't go. So I'm going to Toronto and I'm determined to have a good time. I just don't know if I'll be able to go back next year.. Maybe they can add a Boston date or two

 

[U2fan05]

for the future,i'd say it's not worth it to book a non refundable hotel or car rental. the price savings you'd get is not worth the risk. there are coupon and corp codes out there on the internet that you can use for hotels and car rentals that give a good rate and is still cancellable.

 

[kramwest1]

for the future,i'd say it's not worth it to book a non refundable hotel or car rental. the price savings you'd get is not worth the risk. there are coupon and corp codes out there on the internet that you can use for hotels and car rentals that give a good rate and is still cancellable.

Yup. Most rental car direct web sites don't charge a deposit and allow cancellation up to a few hours before the reservation. I exploit this all of the time since rental car prices seem to change often.


I'm hoping that later today or tomorrow I can talk to United about my couple of flights.

 

[d.darroch]

nice thread Brad, good idea.

Well I haven't done too bad out of this. My international flight from Australia was booked on Qantas, with frequent flyer points. Out of 48,000 points for the flight, I lose 5,000 points as a cancellation fee. Not too bad.

As for the domestic flights, Midwest charges $100 cancellation fee. But this flight (LAX-DEN) only cost $70, so it's a lost cause I guess. The rest of the domestic flights were Southwest, the 3 flights add up to around $260. As others have mentioned, no cancellation fees, with the funds being credited for future travel. My funds must be used by May 1st, 2011, so I'm praying for a US leg before then. As Dan kinda alluded to, these funds can be used for other travellers, which is pretty cool.

I've become more of a Southwest fan, since this debacle. How can a budget airline offer lower fares (on lots of routes), not charge for baggage, & actually have more friendly cancellation policies than the other domestic carriers. Southwest may not be up there with Europe's Ryan air (some rediculously cheap fares), but it's 1,000 times better than the rest of the US's domestic carriers. They absolutely suck, charging up to $50 for a piece of luggage, & $150 to change a flight!

As for car rentals, as U2fan05 said, coupons & corp rates can be found that end up being just as cheap as priceline & hotwire, & can be cancelled at no cost. Best rates I've found are through Costco.

My accommodation, SLC (University Guest House), Anaheim (Marriott) & Denver (Hotel VQ - through booking.com), were all cancelled at no cost. Luckily my Oakland accommodation (Quality Inn), which was non-refundable, was never booked, as Brad & I were lazy, & never got around to booking it

All that I can think of that's left is a GA ticket to see MGMT at Red Rocks, for 11th June, I won't be making that show, & cheap camping fees for a yurt right near Red Rocks. Brad, I'll PM you & see what your plans are, & organise to get you some cash for these.

Hope everyone else doesn't do too badly out of this either.

 

[lauramullen]

I'm going to call Orbitz about my hotel situation in Oakland and see what they say.

 

[vjacqb]

I agree with hotel reservations. With my AAA membership I can usually get the same rate as nonrefundable rate, but the AAA rate is cancellable. Same with car rentals. I've had a bad experience with some rental place trying to give me another type of car, and since I didn't have a prepaid rate, I just canceled everything and walked out.

I've been in a situation where I fell sick during my vacation and couldn't fly to my next destination. That taught me to get travel insurance for any airplane tickets that's > $200, because that's the most I'm willing to lose if God forbids, something happens.

Of course that travel insurance doesn't cover cancellation of event at destination. So I'm thinking the next time I book plane tickets anywhere JUST to see U2, I'm buying the full refundable fare.

Luckily this time I had arranged for some other activities besides U2 for all my trips, so I can still use all my tickets and reservations and enjoy my time off.

Unfortunately, I've never heard of someone successfully getting airlines to waive that $150 change fee. Except for one time, but my friend just changed her departure date to one day later. After begging, the airline rep finally agreed to change her departure date without charging her a fee. I doubt they're willing to waive the fee if you're changing your departure AND return dates to let's say six months from now...

 

[Pop Artist]

This is the second time I've had travel plans affected by U2 postponements. Although 80-90% of the time I am Priceline queen with hotels, I've gotten extremely lucky insofar as these cancellations - I've had cancelable non-Priceline reservations for two of the three destinations - Honolulu and SLC (I was charged a $20 cancel fee for my Honolulu hotel), and not bit too badly with the airlines - for Honolulu I was using FF miles so I think the total fees for booking/changing were $100 on American, and on JetBlue to SLC, the cancellation fee was $100, with a $269 credit for future travel.

I DID Priceline my Toronto hotel, plus my bus ticket is also non-refundable, so I am going anyway, it's a holiday weekend, plus I like Toronto so it's a good getaway.

 

[MissVelvetDress_75]

If Southwest flew out of Atlanta, I would use them. Damn you Delta and Airtran.

 

[BluRmGrl]

If Southwest flew out of Atlanta, I would use them. Damn you Delta and Airtran.

Same thing for Wilmington. We've got USAir, Delta, or Allegiant (<-- who?!?). If we're going to fly Southwest or JetBlue, it's 3.5 hrs to Charlotte or 2hrs to Raleigh.

 

[Pop Artist]

Same thing for Wilmington. We've got USAir, Delta, or Allegiant (<-- who?!?). If we're going to fly Southwest or JetBlue, it's 3.5 hrs to Charlotte or 2hrs to Raleigh.

Southwest flies out of NYC now but whenever I check fares for them, they are always quite a bit higher than what I can get with other airlines. Sometimes (but definitely less often) it's the same with JetBlue, which begs the question if there are really "budget" airlines anymore. I suppose Spirit is the one that generally runs the cheapest, but the places they fly to are quite limited.

 

[ryancoke71]

I love Allegiant air....It is non refundable, but my family of 4 could fly from Duluth to Orlando for under $600 return, taxes and baggage included. I do buy travel insurance when I fly with them. They also have wicked cheap fares to Vegas. I would not use them in a concert situation though. I used Northwest (now Delta) for Vegas 360!

 

[cathalmc]

I'm trying to minimize the amount I lose on flight fees (as I was mostly planning on staying with mates or couch surfing). I only had one booking for accomodation in a hostel in Seattle for which I'll lose my 10% deposit.

But I'd bought two Delta flights, two American Airlines flights, two Alaska Airlines flights, and one flight each with Midwest, Southwest and US Airways. And a Virgin Atlantic flight from London to LA, and back again from New York.

Virgin charge £90 change fee (plus fare difference) so I'm prob gonna change the flight dates to October / November when the original price I paid (£416) is available again. Once that's booked I'll make other plans for the other flights.

But after maybe booking one more flight just to try to get some value for money back, I intend to never give a single penny / cent to Delta every again, thieving wankers.

So Midwest charge $100 and Alaska $75? I haven't called them yet, I was hoping they'd be more Southwestern than Deltan. Damn. Anyone know how much American Airlines charge?

 

[Pop Artist]

Anyone know how much American Airlines charge?

Think it depends on the fare class you're in, but it is also in the $150 range.

 

[ramblin rose]

American charges $150 just like Delta. I had most of my flights on American and have spent two days trying to unravel things.

 

[cathalmc]

Thanks Pop Artist, Rosa.

Fucking airlines! That's ridiculous, $150 for a couple of keyboard presses, otherwise they keep your money for a service you can't use. May a volcanic ash cloud blow over their base airport for many years (which obviously clears temporarily if any of you lovely lot need to fly). Grrrr ....

 

[ramblin rose]

Yeah, I've taken a beating on my AA flights. And what's worse is that the tickets that did have any value left in them, I have to travel by 1 year of the original issue date which in my case was substantially earlier than the original tour dates, so I'll have to use them sometime later since next year's vacation time will be used up with the new shows.

 

[MissVelvetDress_75]

Same thing for Wilmington. We've got USAir, Delta, or Allegiant (<-- who?!?). If we're going to fly Southwest or JetBlue, it's 3.5 hrs to Charlotte or 2hrs to Raleigh.

I would have to drive to Birmingham, AL to catch a Southwest flight. Sometimes that is a better option but then I have to factor in time of travel in terms of distance and gas.

 

[powerhour24]

I'm out $100 to Virgin America, with the remaining $160 in credit I have to use in the next 12 months... they're brand new and have all of 10 destinations. Hurray. At least I waited last week to book the hotel, I was about to use PriceLine on Thursday but put it off until Friday when we got the news, dodged a bullet there.

 

[I Move in Mysterious Ways]

I'll make another phone call this afternoon, but I'm pretty certain I'm out my entire flight cost from Milwaukee to Santa Ana (Anaheim). Just changing the flight costs $150 (I'm flying Frontier Airlines). I didn't really ask about a credit -- cause what the hell would I use it for (Frontier?!). Fortunately, my flight wasn't quite as expensive as some of the other ticket prices I've seen mentioned on the forum.

That said, I'm not sure what to do. Do I spend more money for a hotel, food, entertainment in Anaheim or just write off the loss as "shit happens"? There's still a pretty extensive fan gathering on the 5th, but what I'd do on the remaining days isn't really clear.

 

[Billy Rotten]

Looks like I'm either out $359 or I drive to Montreal and spend 4 nights there sightseeing, e.t.c., because neither Hotwire nor the AccessAmerica travel insurance I bought are going to help me out.

I'd love to see a dollar figure on how much this is going to cost U2 fans! It'll be in the millions!

 

[DRay9911]

we should start a list!

/anaheim thread'd

 

[vjacqb]

There's still a pretty extensive fan gathering on the 5th, but what I'd do on the remaining days isn't really clear.

Whaddya mean? You're coming with me to Disney (AGAIN) on Sunday and to the spa on Monday!