Comments on: continental airlines charged us a 100 dollar per ticket cancellation fee for cancelling our flight home from?

By: Dan

Dan — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 00:10:26 +0000

Your tickets may not be worth anything at all. You used them for one-way tickets when you flew your outward legs. Sometimes, one way is more expensive than round trip.

Your ticket is actually a contract between you and the airline, and the conditions for its use are found in the “Conditions of Carriage” portion. If you read this, you can see what the rules are.

If you take the ticket to a Continental ticket agent, he/she will inform you of their worth.

Regards,
Dan

By: averagebear

averagebear — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 04:23:28 +0000

I don’t think you should have paid the $100 fees. Never give airlines more money only to lock yourself in. What are the chances you’ll actually use those tickets? You’d have to buy one-way (expensive) out there just to use these return portions. Besides, your boss bought the jetblue tickets, so you yourself didn’t lose money if you just tossed the continental tickets.
I don’t know the details of your ticket policy. I usually don’t pay the $100 until I have a fixed new date I’m changing to. That way I pay only one penalty. Otherwise, they may charge you $100 again when you want to pick a date to fly.

By: Andrew P

Andrew P — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 18:37:18 +0000

Agree with everything the other commenter wrote. In addition, I would check with someone at your company to see if they will reimburse you for the cancellation fee. My company will do so if I am forced to change personal trip plans due to unavoidable work-related issues.

By: porschefraulein

porschefraulein — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 09:04:34 +0000

Yes, it makes sense to cancel, because otherwise there is no refund on the tickets at all, unless you bought a fully-refundable fare (which are typically expensive). As most people don’t buy the higher-priced, refunable fares, those who don’t show for a flight are simply out their money. (There are rare circumstances when an airline might take pity on a passenger who had a major emergancy, but those are very few and far between, and usually require a long battle with the airline.)

So, to answer your question, no, you wouldn’t have been “charged” anything for being a no-show, but you would’ve been out the money you had already spent on the flight. By canceling, at least you saved some of your money….