I booked a flight with Tiger Air in January and have since changed my mind about the destination. Like Air Asia, etc, I will get nothing back, so I have no incentive to cancel my flight.
Umm, it appears you have not heard of 'stand by' passengers. Someone looking for a seat will show up at the boarding gate and asked to be put on 'stand by'. When the flight has boarded, your name has been called a couple of times and you don't show up, they will then give the seat to the stand by passenger. They'll get paid twice.
Non-refundable tickets do not result in any loss to the airline in revenue. Even if there are no stand by passengers waiting to get on, they've still been paid for the seat once. Your no show simply improves their profit since you and your luggage don't add to the weight and therefore they use a tiny but less fuel.
All your not cancelling does is affect some other person who was perhaps trying to book a seat on the flight. So you are potentially punishing someone else because you changed your plans. You are not punishing the airline at all.
Airlines usually will accept a few additional reservations for seats on a flight beyond the aircraft's seating capacity. They do that to fill seats left empty by passengers who don't show up for their flight or don't cancel their reservations prior to the flight's departure. Travelers who don't have reservations and want to get on a flight often are willing to standby, knowing that many overbooked flights depart with empty seats.
I have flown often in Asia and while they may have standby travellers hoping to get a seat in America, I have yet to see any in Asia. As I said, most flights are full up so anyone who has not booked early will probably end up travelling by another method, maybe after spending all day in the airport.
I only travel with hand luggage, rather than with hold baggage which has to be paid extra for anyway.
Sure my seat has been paid for but they could get half as much again if they gave refunds as I suggested. I must remember to confirm that flight.
I just checked and Tiger Air does not operate a standby or waitlist. Their own site.
Ryanair rip off any late bookers. I had a flight booked from Paris/Beauvais to Malaga last year and out of curiosity asked a few hours before take off how much that flight was now. It cost me €35 but for last minute bookers it would cost €380. Not many standbys with that budget airline.
If you're willing to pay a higher fare, some low-cost airlines offer flexibility in changing dates of flights, but not destinations. As always, it pays to check before purchasing. Generally, flights are fuller nowadays than in the past, judging by the 60 or so flights that I took overseas during the past 12 months. The carriers ranged from Airnorth, to Air Moldova, Ukraine International Airlines, AirAsia, Wings Air, Garuda, Air Niugini, Airlines PNG, Virgin Australia, Qatar, Aeroflot, Singapore, Air New Zealand, Delta Air Lines, Royal Air Maroc, Air France, KLM, Delta, Air Europa, Turkish, Jet Airways, LAN, Bolivianos de Aviacion, etc. I only travel with hand luggage, too.
Hotels offer nonrefundable (cheaper) rates as well. If there's uncertainty that I might not make it there, I opt to pay a higher rate for the flexibility to cancel or change the dates.
[ 19-Sep-2016, at 10:35 by berner256 ]
The trouble is the extra cost of flexibility is often quite expensive, as in maybe a third more than a budget price. I booked four return flights, one long haul, from December to March and cannot afford to possibly waste such a sum on maybes.
Booking.com allows free cancellation of hotel rooms up to several days before so I was able to cancel the hotel without loss and with nearly 4 months to go, I have no doubt they will get someone else in that room.
The cost varies from carrier to carrier; and so do the rules.
I often use a website where it compares many prices and you really see the difference between budget and normal carriers.
The Web sites, such as Kayak, Skyscanner and Google.com/flights are useful. But you have to look beyond the price that's displayed; and play around with the routings to see if you can get a better deal. That applies to the major as well as the low-cost carriers.
Example from this year: The one-way fare on LAN from Calama to Santiago, Chile, usually is very expensive for the distance flown. The alternative is to fly Sky on that route. Sky is a discount carrier with many types of promotional fares; and its prices are much lower than LAN's. But Sky's schedule, for me, wasn't as good as LAN's. What to do? I knew I also needed a one-way ticket from Buenos Aires to El Calafate, Argentina. Both LAN and Aerolineas Argentinas fly that route, for about the same price. So, using one of those Web sites, Kayak, I paired both segments on the same itinerary -- CJC-SCL and AEP-FTE -- and discovered that I could get a LAN ticket that priced the CJC-SCL segment for about the same as Sky's. So I bought the ticket on Expedia.
Earlier this year, I discovered a less expensive way to visit family in Honolulu from Atlanta in conjunction with international travel. So in December, I'll fly from Libreville, Gabon, to Atlanta, spending three weeks there, before flying in January to Honolulu on the same ticket. The Atlanta-Honolulu segment is considered continuation of an international flight, since it crosses international waters (the Pacific).
Besides price, I also check flight reliability, particularly if I have to make connections. I use Web sites such as flightaware.com, flightstats.com and flightradar24.com.
All this requires extra effort. For me, it's worth it.
When you knowingly AGREE to something, you have no legal or moral right to then complain when it doesn't work out in your favour. When you book a non-refundable/changeable ticket YOU agree to accept the RISK of your cancelling. When the airline sells me a fully refundable/cancellable ticket, THEY agree to accept the RISK of my cancelling.
That is a pretty simple, straightforward thing to understand. What you are saying is that you agreed but now want to change your mind as it hasn't worked out in your favour.
I am a believer in the saying that 'the people get what the people deserve.' You got what you deserve. Now man up and cancel your booking so that some other traveller who does want to fly can book the seat. Do what is the right thing to do rather than attempting some petty 'revenge' on the airline.
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