Have ticket, must travel

0 Comments | Insight on the News, March 31, 1997 | by Stacie Zoe Berg

Flying can cost big buck. Not flying can cost even more when discount tickets aren't refundable.

Travelers who cancel a reservation with a nonrefundable fare face two choices: Accept the loss, which can total hundreds of dollars, or pay a stiff penalty and apply the price of that ticket to another within one to two years.

Unlike baseball or theater tickets, flyers can't give discount tickets away -- that's one of the terms of purchase. Airlines have contracts of carriage that outline conditions governing ticket sales, but "it's one of the most impossible documents to get," Tom Parsons, editor of Best Fares magazine, tells Insight. Without seeing this, travelers don't know their rights.

During the blizzard of 1996, for example, when flights were canceled, airlines told passengers they could use their tickets at a later date with no penalty. But the contract also stated they could get a full refund if they so chose, Parsons says.

"Since airline deregulation in 1978, we have not regulated the conditions of airline tickets and what stipulations airlines can put on them," says Bill Mosley, public-affairs specialist at the Department of Transportation. "They're free to put whatever conditions and restrictions on tickets they wish."

Airlines impose restrictions to assure their profit margins. If a ticketholder doesn't make the flight, the airline has lost its opportunity to sell the seat. If the passenger gives the ticket away, the carrier has lost its opportunity to sell to a potential customer.

"The consumer has made the decision [by purchasing a nonrefundable fare] that he doesn't want to be able to transfer that ticket", says John McDonald, a TWA spokesman, noting that full fares are refundable. "There is no prohibition from a person giving somebody else a ticket. You just need to be able to pay to do it."

Every industry, depending on its nature, imposes some restrictions on its customers, concurs Mark Cooper, research director at the Consumer Federation of America. "To me, the abuse in the airline industry is in the exercise of market power, not the restriction on the tickets," he says. "In competitive markets ... you will be able to get the prices you want without the restrictions you don't like."

How do you get a more competitive market? "That's the key question, and that's where the public policy has failed," Cooper tells Insight. "As a matter of public policy, we allowed airlines to merge. We allowed them to capture huge airports and turn them into fortress hubs. We've allowed them to manipulate the computerized reservation system. We've allowed them to exploit kickbacks to travel agents."

Cooper says the Consumer Federation has complained about this for years, and Parsons of Best Fares suggests individuals air their criticisms concerning ticket restrictions to their congressmen as well. "The government should be out there being our workhorse, our watchdog in the sky," says Parsons.

In the meantime, flyers will have to settle for the satisfactions of cheap if nontransferable tickets. Travelers should visit airline's Internet sites for nonadvertised fares, says Parsons, or go to his magazine's Internet site at http://www.bestfares.com for advice on "fare wars, deals that may only last for a few hours and the latest information on the travel industry."