Buying an airline ticket to Hawaii isn’t always cheap, no matter how good a deal you find. If the price of that ticket drops after purchase, that hurts.
The tight economy, and rapidly changing travel prices have increased our interest in price protection. The Airline Reporting Corporation (ARC) reports that the number of applications for ticket exchanges and refund vouchers is on the increase.
Priceline’s Pricedrop Protection.
This latest offering is valid for packages booked on Priceline’s site by June 1. It offers refunds of up to $600 on air plus hotel packages and up to $300 for air plus car packages.
My verdict: no deal.
We’ve previously covered the price assurance offerings from Priceline competitors Travelocity and Orbitz. With all three of these programs, they sound good, but chances of actually getting a refund may be rather slim.
Here’s why: These refunds are not just based on the amount of money that a fare drops between city destinations, but rather on someone getting a better price than you, on the exact same terms. Because the airlines constantly change fare terms, that is unlikely to happen.
I continue to believe that the online travel agency price protection promotions are mostly marketing hype. If you are able to get a refund out of them, please share the details with us. So far, no one has.
Coming Soon: How the airlines flying to Hawaii handle price protection.
I’ll discuss this and also a novel way for you to automatically monitor price fluctuations after you buy your tickets. Stay tuned.
Christina (3 years ago)
Hi Jeff – I thought you’d be interested in this release.
Orbitz.com today announced its “Fly Fee Free” promotion, removing booking fees on flights booked on or before May 31, 2009. Together with Price Assurance, the “Fly Fee Free” promotion clearly establishes Orbitz as the best place for consumers to book their flight online.
Price Assurance is a permanent offering – the only one of its kind in the industry – and it’s completely automatic. If you book a flight on Orbitz, and another Orbitz customer subsequently books the same ticket at a lower published fare, Orbitz automatically sends you a check for the difference, from
$5 up to a maximum of $250 per traveler. Since the launch of Price Assurance in June 2008, Orbitz has been sending out thousands of checks per month, and now with the introduction of its “Fly Fee Free” promotion, there has never been a better time to buy at Orbitz.
For more details on the Orbitz “Fly Fee Free” promotion visit http://www.orbitz.com/nofees. For more information on Orbitz Price Assurance visit http://www.orbitz.com/priceassurance.
Best regards,
Cristina
P.s. CheapTickets also removed booking fees on domestic and international tickets through May 31, 2009.
Tatjana Eggink (3 years ago)
When I booked a trip on United on March 21st, I was not made aware of nor was there any information on the website that on March 20th, the refund program that United has had for years – get a voucher for the price difference- had changed overnight.
On April 8th, I received a Yapta alert that the price for my September 2009 ticket had dropped. I called United and was informed of the new policy. I asked where on their website this policy is stated, and they were unable to show me. I inquired how I was to know about such a change, which would have halted me from booking the trip and “wait it out” until such a time that the price went lower. I must say that I feel duped. I read all the rules that were available to read, but this one was not posted – nor was it on April 8th. This is bad business.
What can be done? I encourage everyone to write directly to United to voice our discontent. If we, the passengers, do not speak up and do this, nothing will change.
By the way, even Yapta, did not have the current information under the United Policy page; they did, however, feature it on an FAQ about fares…Yapta was very responsive and said they would change the United Policy page.