A Winter Non-Wonderland - A quick tip to navigating air travel & maintaining what sanity you have left.
Flights cancelled due to severe weather? Airline being uncooperative? Feeling like you don't understand your rights when it comes to air travel?
After calling an airline for my clients, it regularly makes me wonder how people who don't understand the travel industry get anything done. I genuinely feel that many people are taken advantage of because they do not know what to look & ask for when it comes to talking to an airline. I don't believe that airlines overall are out to swindle us, but i do believe that customer service and job training has become so bad that miscommunications and frustrations are at large. SO, I hope these tips help you survive the pending winter storms without adding to your gray hairs, wrinkles or taking away from your general well being!
Each cabin on a plane, basic, main, premium, business & first have different rules when it comes to what you can & cannot do with your ticket. Basic is the most restrictive & as you work up in the ranks, things get "easier". (Caveat - even in main, premium, business & first, there are limitations if you purchased a sale fare!) Generally, in the case of weather delays/acts of God, an airline may shrug their shoulders with an "it is what it is" attitude, THAT IS, until a waiver or travel advisory is issued.
A waiver or travel advisory, is what the airline customer service agent needs, to override existing rules in place on your original ticket. Waivers often surface in severe weather, industrial action (strike) & involuntary schedule changes (changes the traveler did not action).
For example, in relation to change fees; a waiver would allow the traveler to rebook their ticket without being charged a change fee & in some cases, the fare difference, REGARDLESS of the cabin they have booked their ticket in. (Fare difference is the difference between what you paid and what the price is at the time of the change).
With the current weather belting down on many locations in the US, many airlines have issued winter weather waivers/travel advisories that are in place for travel from December 22 through 28-ish & that allow travelers to rebook tickets without change fees & fare difference, regardless of the type of cabin you have booked. If you're calling an airline and they're refusing to assist with the free change based on your involuntary scheduled changes due to severe weather, Google that airline's "travel advisory", read through it carefully to determine if it applies to you and then call the airline. Here are some i sourced online!
(Current as of 13:38 PST, 22DEC2022)
Keep in mind that you cannot action a waiver if you are not yet impacted, impact is determined by the content of the waiver. For example, are your flights between the cities listed in the waiver, are they over the dates identified, etc. Even if you suspect it will happen, you must wait until you are impacted to act on a waiver.
All that said, why didn't you buy travel insurance? Do you think you don't need it? Are you taking a page from Austin Power's book & living dangerously? Even for domestic travel, travel insurance is worth it, especially when you have something like battleface's a la carte product that allows you to buy just what you need, saving you a pretty penny.
If you're relying on your credit card insurance to provide coverage... my recommendation is to call the credit card company for a copy of the policy, identify what coverage is missing (because you will likely be missing something) & then use battleface to buy the missing piece.
Important Note: Travel insurance needs to be in place and effective before somethings comes up. You don't buy car insurance after you total your car... things have to be unforeseen. This might seem obvious but you'd be surprised.
Safe travels, I hope this helped. Don't let the airline walk all over you.
Your friendly neighborhood travel coach,
Ros
PS. The storm is worsening so reconsider the need to travel & look to see if the waiver affords you a refund or credit for future travel! Usually, you will have 12- months to use the credit from the date of issue.