Giving the Gift of Travel

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Posted by A Tam on Tuesday, May 11, 2010

Want to purchase a travel certificate for that special someone who loves to travel or perhaps send an annoying relative, spouse or roommate on a long trip somewhere far away? We’ve compiled a list of airlines and online agencies that offer gift certificates or gift cards. For the most part, you can simply purchase them online. The exceptions are US Air and Delta. You have to purchase those at the airport or over the phone. Since most cards can be ordered online they can be delivered via email or sent by mail to the recipient for a fee. The only certificates that we found with expiration dates were sold by Travelocity, Delta, and Continental. Those specific certificates must be used within a year. The rest do not expire (at least not until the airline selling them does). See below for other restrictions as these can vary from one company to another.

Company/Airline	How to Purchase	How To Redeem	Delivery Method	Expiration	Restrictions
Jetblue	Online	Online or Phone ($15 fee)	Email or In person	Never	Cannot use on Vacation Packages
United	Online	Online or Phone	Mail Only	Never	Use for United Vacations Only
American	Online	Online or Phone	Mail (fee) or Email	Never	None- use for any flight
US Air	Phone Only	Phone Only	Mail	Never	None- use for any flight
Air Tran	Online	Online/Phone/In Person	Email	Never	None- use for any flight
Southwest	Online	Online/Phone/In Person	Email or Mail(fee)	Never	None- use for any flight
Continental	Online	Online Only	Email	1 year	None- use for any flight
Alaska Air	Online or at select Stores	Online Only	Email or at Select Stores	None	None- use for any flight
Delta	In person only	In Person Only or Travel Agent		1 year	None- use for any flight.
Travelocity	Online	Online	Email	1 year	Use for Last Minute Packages only
Expedia	N/A	NONE	NONE	NONE
Orbitz	N/A	NONE	NONE	NONE

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Re: Difficulty using travel cards: I received a $100 Travelocity gift card for Christmas in 2008. I tried to use it towards air or hotel on the regular Travelocity site a couple of months later, but soon found I could not. The card could ONLY be used on a special site which did not have the same hotels or rates that were appearing at the time on the regular Travelocity site. Upon checking w/Travelocity, I was told another company actually handled the card and ran the other site, and the matter was out of their hands! The offerings on the special site were much more limited, but thankfully I was able to book one night of a 2 night hotel stay w/the card in July of '09. While I'm at it, I'd like to warn anyone wishing to give any type of gift credit card (i.e., Visa, Master Card, etc.) to be put towards any type of travel to be very careful. The reason? Many airline sites and travel booking sites only allow the use of ONE CREDIT TYPE card per purchase (I am not talking about an airline site's own gift card). If your gift charge card does not cover at least the entire cost of your purchase, you are out of luck w/regard to putting it towards your air or hotel purchase on most sites. I THINK (?) SWA allows the use of 2 separate charge cards towards an online purchase, but be sure to check before planning to do this. Make sure whichever site you choose allows you to use 2 different cards on one purchase if your gift charge won't cover the entire amount.

by mlbcruiser on Tuesday, May 11, 2010

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