Airtran Question Changes

[Niagara2]

For anyone who has changed a ticket with Airtran - I was wondering if they let you cancel a ticket without penalty if the time of the flight has changed.
Actually, the tickets we had became a shorter connecting flight but the departure time changed by an hour and the arrival stayed the same. The real reason I will cancel is because we found much cheaper flights on SW. Even if we pay the change fee and get a credit we are still ahead but it would be nice to save the almost $200 in change fees. Think I will have any success?

 

[erikthewise]

The general rule seems to be that if the change is 90 minutes or more, you can back out without penalty. (I am not claiming this is an official policy, though it may be, just my vague impression.)

We had a change of about 90 minutes for our return flight, which we considered to actually be an improvement. We eventually received an email several weeks later from Airtran asking us to either accept or not accept this change. I didn't pay full attention since we gladly accepted, but I believe we could have chosen to accept a refund or make certain changes without penalty.

Of course there's no reason to wait for an email, just call customer service. Nobody needs to know you want to cancel to go on SW, just tell them the new time "conflicts with your travel plans" if they ask. Even if your case doesn't officially meet their criteria, they may grant your request. Airtran customer service is more cooperative than some.

 

[Mickey'sApprentice]

That must be the policy for them. We were scheduled to return from Orlando to Atlanta with AirTran at 8:40 PM on Jan. 8th but they cancelled that flight and put us on a 7:00 flight. Since that was more than 90 minutes we went ahead and cancelled the return flight altogether and got a refund for that flight. We were then able to get a Delta flight out at 8:20 PM. This way we only lose 20 minutes on our last day. So we are now flying from ATL to MCO on AirTran and flying back on Delta.

 

[Niagara2]

Thanks guys - I called and they gave me a full refund. They considered it a completely changed flight as the flight number changed. The time difference was 67 minutes. No hassle and great customer service at airtran today!