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One of the reasons I like Southwest Airlines the most is their refundable flight policy. I have had incidents where I have booked for the incorrect weekend and was able to switch flight dates within minutes. Southwest allows you to cancel or change your fare within 24 hours of booking for a refund.
Additionally, if you need to you can cancel your flight up to the departure time you will get a credit. Your Southwest credit is then good for a full year towards a new flight. If you used your Southwest points to book your flight and need to change flights your points are refunded to you. This is just one of the many reasons we love to fly Southwest.
Other airlines I would have paid change fees which would negate any gains I had with using points. Another benefit is when the flash sales come up, you can at times rebook parts of your flight for the cheaper costs and get the points or cash refund.
Refundable Flights
The biggest key to getting the best deals on travel is booking so far in advance. When you use the flexibility of booking in advance by booking nine months out, that is a lot of time for other things in life to pop up. It also isn’t just things that change for you in your life. Sometimes you may need to change your flights due to an airline or hotel changing. Right now Marriott workers are on strike at certain areas throughout the country.
There are current reports of hotels in Hawaii in Waikiki Beach that have no assistance for their bags, no housekeeping or no restaurants available. When traveling to a dream location in Hawaii, you don’t want to worry about this. The last thing I would want to worry about is if my garbage is still sitting in my room for five days straight and not having towels.
Having the refundable options would allow you to shift to a different hotel.
This is one of the reasons I prefer to book right through the airlines and hotel companies. Instead of the ‘search engine’ sights such as hotels.com or
Conclusion
Always look at all your options, and I have seen most hotels will match prices that are located on those sites if there is a big difference. I recently have found over the last several years that there has not been a significant cost difference between these locations.
O wow I never realized that you could even get refundable flights! That is great to know. I did hear that the best time to book a flight is the Tuesday after cyber monday. That is about all I know about flight booking lol.
We love to fly on Southwest and they have one of the best refund and cancellation policies. Check out more details here: https://www.southwest.com/html/customer-service/purchasing-and-refunds/refund-info-pol.html
Additional travel insurance will help you if you have to use an airline that doesn’t have as nice of a policy. Always make sure you know the terms when purchasing tickets.
Happy Travels!
Joni –
That’s interesting. we mainly fly with low-cost European airlines and they, of course, don’t do refunds, we also book about 9 months ahead of time, I get around that by getting cancelation insurance, it costs money but not as much as flying with the “traditional” companies(BA, AF etc.) your airline sounds better:)
Most airlines don’t offer that perk so it’s great that some do. Travel insurance or cancellation insurance is your next best bet but can be expensive.