Cancel Your Airline Reservation

What can you do to avoid paying the airline a change fee if you need to change your airline reservation?  The answer is to cancel your airline reservation instead.  This tip comes from an airline agent.

I had a great cheap round trip airline ticket from Baltimore to Boston for only $95.00.  That’s a great bargain airline ticket, I know, but I found out that I had to stay longer than planned after I purchased the ticket. 

Any change to an airline reservation is going to cost you, but I did not want to pay the change fee on this ticket.  The change fee cost more than the airline ticket.  So instead of changing the ticket right away, I waited until I got to the airport to ask the agent the best way to handle it.

She said:

1. Never change your reservation at the airport.  There is always an extra fee if you change or book a reservation at the airport.

2. Don’t change your reservation or you will be charged the change fee plus the cost of your new airline ticket.

3. Cancel your airline ticket instead, because the cancellation fee will be less than the change fee.  In my case, the change fee was $100 and the cancellation fee was $50.

4. Cancel your reservation over the phone to make sure you receive the proper credit for the remaining cost of your airline ticket so you can get it credited to your next reservation.

5. Rebook your airline ticket online to get the cheapest possible ticket.  If you rebook your reservation on the phone you will pay an extra fee for booking your reservation through an agent.

6. Always book your airline reservation at least one week in advance.  If you book a reservation with less than 7 days before your departure you will pay a higher rate for that ticket.

This process worked for me.  My cheap airline ticket cost less than the cancellation fee, so the airline had to call it a wash.  They would have had to charge me an extra $20 for a flight I did not take.  So the agent just canceled out my return flight.  I did not have to pay the $100 change fee either.  I then went online to book my return flight to get the best rate.  I booked the flight 8 days before my return date and got my return airline ticket for $75.00.  It would have been at least $175.00 if I had changed the reservation instead of canceling and re-booking the flight.

Don’t try this on a route that is heavily booked, or with vacation packages, and make sure you have at least 7 days between rescheduling your flight.  It’s not worth it if the rate you will pay for your new airline ticket is going to increase due to lack of time to rebook outside of the 7-day window.

So, if you do not want to pay a change fee, look into canceling and re-booking your airline ticket instead.

Now Take Off!