Q. We had long-standing reservations for a flight to St Louis, connecting in Atlanta. Departure time from our home city was 8:30 am.

We received an email timed at midnight (which we didn't see right away) and then a 5:00 am automated phone call from Delta telling us the flights had been cancelled, and that we'd been placed on another series of flights departing around noon. It would have gotten us to St Louis within five hours of our original arrival time.

The new timing did not work for us, so I called Delta (and after being on hold for quite a while) the reissue desk allowed us to cancel with a full refund ... since they said that it was an involuntary change on our part.

Is this common? I mean, I'm grateful to have a full refund, but with all the schedule changes in the air today, is it Delta's policy to fully refund if THEY change the flights?

 

A. Yes indeed, this is called an involuntary refund and most airlines have a rule in their contracts of carriage covering this. If the flight is cancelled, or the time significantly changed (depending on airline, if it's just an hour or two this doesn't apply) you can get a full refund, even on a non refundable ticket.

You'll find this rule (usually called Rule 260) in the airlines' contracts of carriage. So if you feel like the new flight times are so far off the original that you can't make it to the airport in time, or your trip will be futile, ask for a refund.

We actually were offered a full refund on Frontier because the flight *number* changed. I couldn't believe it at first, but they called us and asked us to call back with our confirmation number about our flight. My husband called and they told him that the flight number (not flight time or anything else, just flight number) changed on one of our flights and because of that we were entitled to a full refund of the ticket. So my husband quickly checked online to see what the current price of the ticket was (I had been receiving notices that it had dropped by more than $100), and told them that we did want the refund. So they submitted the tickets for a refund and we turned around and bought them back for about $70 less apiece. When I received the notices that the ticket prices had dropped, I thought we were out of luck because the Frontier web site states that they do not offer refunds if the fare changes, so apparently this is a loophole in their policy.

Our upcoming Delta flight to Charleston SC was concelled. When I called they were apologetic but the replacement routing was very cumbersome. I did not accept their word and continued to press for a better routing. We wound with a more direct flight and a better time. Morale of the story: don't accept their first offer if it's no good. Be persistent but calm.