Changing an airline reservation, without getting charges??????

[travelin' mouse]

My husband and I are going to the Night of Joy weekend in Sept. It was originally 2 nights, fri & sat Now they have added thurs. which really is awesome except I'm not coming in until Friday. My tickets are with Continental airlines (on a NWA fight). Continental wants $100.oo per ticket to change the date. We only paid $175.00 for the originally.
Does anyone know how to get around this $100.00 fee?

I do belive in Miracles and Mouse Magic

Cathy

 

[CarolMN]

Assuming you bought non-refundable tickets, no there is no way to get around paying the fee to change your tickets. You would have to pay the fee plus any difference in the fare.

If the airline significantly changes the schedule (at least an hour or more in scheduled arrival or departure time), you may be able to get a refund and book something else. Since September is nearly here, that is unlikely to happen, though. Most schedule chages happen more than 90 days ahead of departure.

Sorry.

 

[Chicago526]

CarolMN is 100% correct, except it needs to be a 90 minute change put in by the airline before you can get a refund on the ticket. Less than 90 minutes, you may be able to talk them into making a change without the fee, but again it will depend on how big a change it is. If it's 5 minutes, forget it. If it's a hour, you may have some wiggle room.

Otherwise, you'll never get around the fee, they just don't waive it anymore. Good luck!

 

[deltachi8]

Just grin and bear it, whatever you decide. There really is no way around the fee. We booked great fares on Delta way back in March for our upcoming trip. Then about a month a go I started thinking we should leave the day before - no problem as long as you pony up the dough. Oh well, live and learn!

 

[travelin' mouse]

I was quite certian that there was no way around the service fee. But I do know, if anyone knew ,you guys would!

Thanks Again,
Cathy

 

[johde]

I don't know but this might work. One time we were scheduled to fly fly home on 2 different flights. (booked at 2 different times and fare changed on later flight). The airline let the peeple on the later flight fly space available on the earlier flight. If there is a lot of room on the flight you might try it. Although they might not a whole day early.

Jeremy

 

[FINFAN]

Well, this is not really getting around the fee, but if you see flights that are times you would like on the same airline, and they are lower than what you paid, part of that lower rate helps to chip away at the penalty. This just happene w/us on AA. We extended our trip by three days, and the new return leg of the flight was $46 less than our original one...therefore we only had a 54 penalty to pay each, total just under $225 for the 4 of us. It hurts, and we are accumulating enough miles on this trip to get us free flights for us all...otherwise I usually stay w/ATA or SW....SW has no penalty, and ATA's is $50.

 

[rlduvall]

I just went through the exact same thing, with Continental. I knew they wouldn't waive the $100. fee, but I did learn something very interesting. Our original flight was only 191. per person. The new flight I wanted was $300. and I hated thinking of paying the difference, plus the $100. due to my bad planning, but I went ahead and called anyway. All the Continental agents I talked to (made several calls for different dates) were incredibly nice and helpful. That's how I found out that the price showing isn't necessarily important, but rather if the Class you ticketed for is still available. In other words, we were like Class T, which was still open at that time (albeit 109.00 more) Because Class T was still available, we only had to pay the 100. change fee. So, in reality, we paid 291.00 for a ticket that other people will pay 300. for, even after I paid the 100. per ticket change fee. At least, for me, that was something I learned new. Cool.

 

[mousebrat]

We had a similar experience with Delta recently. One other thing that might help is if the flight you originally book has a fare decrease. Our flights had a price drop of something like $80 per person. I called about the fare decrease and Delta issued travel vouchers for the difference. Later, we decided that we wanted to change our schedule to arrive earlier, remembering that time is money at WDW. Luckily, the new flight was the same price as the old, so we only had to pay the change penalty. I was able to apply my vouchers towards the penalty and only end up paying something like $50 for the two of us to arrive much earlier in the day. Applying the vouchers may be difficult to do though, I had a very helpful agent who jumped through hoops for me.

All of this is to say keep watching for fare changes on your flight. This is just another way of approaching this as FINFAN suggested, but monitoring the fares may help you lock in the lowest fare and take some of the edge off of the change penalty.

 

[travelin' mouse]

Just got off the phone with the airlines and was able to change the reservations with no fee. Seems their was a memo in my file, have no idea why? This is nothing short of a miracle from the Lord above.
Michael W. Smith here we come!


Thanks again for all your help.

Cathy

 

[Chicago526]

Wow, must be meant to be! Congrats!