It’s never pleasant to have to change travel plans. How three Hawaii-centric airlines handle changes.
Get Breaking Hawaii Travel News
56 thoughts on “$700 Fare Change On “No-Change-Fee” $100 Hawaii Airfare”
Comments are closed.
It’s never pleasant to have to change travel plans. How three Hawaii-centric airlines handle changes.
Get Breaking Hawaii Travel News
Comments are closed.
No change fees are are a bait and switch advertising! I tried to change a flight on the same day and the web had the same cost as the flights I originally purchased. I wanted to change but when trying to change you have to call, can’t do it online and they were charging me $35 more for an interisland flight to change. I had to cancel for a credit and rebook to avoid the fee. So I got a supervisor and explained to him calmly what was happening and he was able to change it with no fee!
Southwest is hands down the best airlines when it comes to flight credit and exchanges. You recieve 100% of your purchase cost if you change or cancel your flight to apply to a future travel. Whereas with Hawaiian you lose the value of your ticket when changing your itinerary. For example, our team’s travel for an upciloming trip got rescheduled for a later date. Although we purchased tickets outside of a airfare sale, when we rebooked our new flights the new route was lower. We saved over $50 per ticket, however Hawaiian absorbed the remaining value and said its would be a one-to-one exchange. Go figure. A’ole Aloha.
Southwest has the best change fees and credits don’t expire the way it. Should be.
However if you buy the cheapest SWA ticket it will cost extra to change to a different flight!
Anyone who flies even semi-regularly knows that if you change a reservation, particularly close to the travel date, there is going to be a big UPcharge. That’s just the way it works.
I’ve experienced it numerous times. I don’t like it, but that’s just the deal. There are lots bigger fish to fry than that,
I didnt read all of the paragraphs because this reminded me of my experience. I opted to just buy a new ticket and eat the cost of the original ticket. a nightmare, and this is before they made money hand over fist for checked baggage.
Regarding Hawaiian Airlines, when advertising their fares, in order to use your hard earned priority privilege of choosing your seat, you need to pay Extra to upgrade from the advertised Main Cabin Basic to Main Cabin That Is an Additional $60. fee on your fare! I find this to be a scam. And after paying this fee, there were times I still couldn’t chose my seat and had to call them several times regarding this. I am Very Disappointed and Frustrated with Hawaiian Airlines and wish they would correct this.
You know that Hawaiian Air is not the only airline with routes into Hawaii, right?
Speaking for myself in the Bay Area, other airlines don’t work for us schedule wise and they often are more expensive.
HA is #1 for schedule and pricing compared to Alaska, United and American. SWA is now included as far as pricing, especially free bags and ease of changeability, but their flight times don’t always work best for us BUT I’d definitely choose them over Alaska, United and AA.
And I should add that my #1 is the ability to fly out of OAK and HA and SWA do (in addition to SFO).
A frequent flier and long time H.A. customer, I am also a victim of this deceitful practice. I had purchased a round trip ticket, but needed to cancel one direction. After noticing a charge on my Hawaiian credit card, I found that they charged me more to fly one way than the original round trip booking price. I canceled that ticket, purchased one online for 70% less, and am now hoping that they’ll change their policy before the credit expires. The end result will definitely affect my sense of loyalty toward them!
Based on what you pointed out, it would seem to be a very deceitful practice on HA’s part to mislead its customers into thinking that a rescheduled flight fare is what we see online.
BOH: “The issue is that the fares available online are not applicable to changes but to new tickets only
HA: website says, “Please note that a fare difference may apply if the rescheduled flight exceeds the value of the original ticket price.”
If they do not explicitly state this (I’m just going off of what was said here) then it seems like a classic bait and switch scheme which obviously isn’t good for the company’s customer service and maybe something the DOT needs to be made aware of.
I fly LAX to HNL round trip every year for the last ten years. In 2021 I did it twice flying first class both times. For the very first time in my life I changed one leg of my flight and Hawaiian Airlines only charged me for the difference in price which turned out to be less than a hundred dollars. After reading this article I will check Southwest Airlines and compare, but I have almost always been a HA passenger. Alaskan had a great WiFi feature on one of their planes that was a great feature. Mahalo
Peter That is exactly how it is supposed to be. I’m a retired travel agent & all these “new” rules are very surprising. Back when it was a change fee & the difference of the new fare and the old fare is what you owed + the change fee.
I’m shocked by HA policy! Yes, non-refundable tickets are still changeable but no refunds given, only credits good for 1 year.
Ever since Southwest started flying to Hawaii we stopped using Hawaiian airlines and their credit card. We go 2 or 3 times per year. Southwest is by far the consumer friendly airline. Changing flights is easy and if the new flight is less you get flight credit back that doesn’t expire anymore! No charge for 2 checked bags per person is reason enough to fly with them.
SWA is very customer friendly. Last min cancellations, free luggage, non-expiring credits, OK no first class, but can’t win then all.
Aloha!
I had booked a LIH-LAX-LIH for the end of Aug. The fare was under $300 RT. As it turned out I had to reschedule the trip…I found some dates online later this year that would work, and the fare was only slightly more than $300. I put that trip on HOLD, and then called Hawaiian. The agent rescheduled the Aug trip for the dates that I had on HOLD, and paid the fare difference of about $57.00. The call took about 10 minutes. I anticipated that I would have to pay the fare difference, and I believe that by putting replacement flights on HOLD before I called made it easier to reschedule.
Mahalo!
Lynn
Was there a Hold fee?
We have flown with Alaska Air since Aloha Airlines went out of business. We used to own a home on the Big Island so a lot of back and forth. Never have had a problem!!!
So far they are Awesome! In all the years we have had only one delay due to ice on the wings in the mainland. I have their credit card and get amazing discounts. 1 bag free for every person In my party. The picture above is misleading, should have been a Hawaiian Airlines plane.
I have a very similar experience with Hawaiian Airlines. I found out the hard way that “no change fees” means they just charge you in less transparent methods not explicitly stated on the website. Rebooking is limited to “rebooking” fares only (often much higher fares than the online flight search results). If you rebook to an itinerary that costs less (e.g. change from transpacific to interisland), you lose the fare difference. If you’re taking to an agent that talks slow, the low fare may increase back to a high fare while they’re talking. I tried to file a complaint with their customer service, but didn’t get anywhere. I then filed a BBB complaint, where they were more responsive, but still don’t seem to be getting anywhere. Beware!
We booked a flight to Kona with a 1-hour layover in Honolulu. Hawaiian Airlines then changed his flight schedule, creating a 3-hour layover. With interisland flights pretty much leaving every hour, we tried to book an earlier flight to Kona. After all, there were two other flights…each one with seats available. The fee to change? An extra $900 for two of us. Yup. That is even though HA (not us) changed the flight schedule. And, like many of you experienced HA‘s customer service was useless. The agent was not helpful, and the IT system was slow. Sticking with the “new” 3-hour layover, we are quite disappointed with Hawaiian Air.
That’s awful!!! I loved Aloha Airlines for interisland flights; Hawaiian has been an 800-pound gorilla for too long and have forgotten what customer service is. Having Southwest should cause them to make changes or suffer the consequences.
I just learned that it’s a Federal law that if they change your flight significantly that you can cancel and get a refund. Reasonable airlines should also work with you (meaning no charging if there’s a higher fare difference in a new flight that you want to now take, even on a diff day to avoid the customer wanting a refund).
This is the same thing that happened to me with Hawaiian Airlines. It would’ve cost me just as much to change my flights as to purchasing new tickets. So I forfeited my tickets and purchased new ones, due to a change in dates for a funeral that I needed to attend. Why do we have to pay more than what we paid for our tickets in the first place to make a change. Isn’t it supposed to be lesser than the usual cost.
Aloha-From the photo, one would get the implication that Alaska is the airline that charged you $700. Any reasoon why yuo didn’t show a Hawaiian plane?
thanks
Hi Jon.
It was a discussion about Hawaiian, Alaska, and Southwest, the Hawaii centrists. The photo includes Alaska, Hawaiian, and United. We didn’t have and couldn’t find a photo with all three. And honestly we just try to keep the photos mixed and interesting. Thanks for the input and more than 100 comments.
Aloha.
Anyone who does much in the way of flying gets the pleasure of hitting a wall now and than.
Aloha Guys
Not surprised with your Hawaiian Air experience.
This past Feb we flew HA First Class on 6 segs starting in Las Vegas and ending at JFK. We needed to change the first segment & the fare was $1,000 per person less but they refused to issue a credit. Subsequently we made a change to one of the inter Island segments and they charged us $59 per person additional. The agent refused to apply the fare reduction against the new charges. Upon returning I wrote to HA and they credited the $59 to my CC + a $100. voucher for future travel. Have yet to receive my full mileage credit on DL Skymiles from HA 6 months later. Needless to say they can keep their $100 vouchers as I will not fly with them again. They are not consumer friendly.
Pre Covid I had booked to fly round trip Hilo to Brisbane, Australia. Cost of round trip was $1100. Finally able to rebook, the new fare was $2300. No change fee, as such, but I didn’t like having to pay more than double the original fare. If I want to do the same trip this Christmas the fare will be $3500! I won’t be going.
Wow Wendy, that’s a crazy price though it would be summer there which is understandable. We paid $1300 pp in April with Hawaiian roundtrip from San Jose, Ca to Sydney but then again, it was their wintertime. Still was a great trip. It was cheaper for us to fly from the West Coast to Sydney than it was to break up the reservation and fly just from HI to Australia. Hope you get there eventually at a reasonable cost.
The first rule of buying basic economy tickets is don’t buy basic economy tickets.
This comment would really rock if your last name started with N…..
Just sayin’
Had a similar experience on Hawaiian. the best way it worked was to get a credit back and then buy new tickets later anewhen we were ready to travel. It all turned out ok.
Booked a ticket from Portland to Kahului one way for a Saturday. Found out two days later I had to work that Saturday in Portland and could not make the flight. Call center told me $700 plus price change for Sunday travel. Online seats were still available for considerably less. Explained that and got not where. Possibly, because call center is not based in US anymore. Banked ticket for now and bought new. This same thing happened in 2018 but the call center was very helpful and got me squared away for less than $90.00. I have flown Hawaiian as a priority over others. That has started to change for me.
Thanks for sharin this valuable information. Though I like flying Hawaii@an, these continued customer service issues are quite concerning. I think I will stick with the major mainland carriers!
I know some of your readers are not fans of Southwest Airlines but the way they price their fares, 2 free bags, truly no change fees, don’t charge you extra for a window or aisle seat, are able to reassign your credit to another person, if you purchase the Wanna Get Away + fare and their latest, with credits and vouchers not expiring, it’s a win-win for the consumer. True Transfarency!
“Welcome” to the latest Hawaiian Airlines expression of its “Aloha”! First, nothing is Worse than Hawaiian customer service. It’s offshore as you immediately realize, the CS Agents have No authority, and the Hawaiian “system” is cumbersome, slow, you are put on hold constantly, etc. etc. Any requested change in my experience takes a minimum of One hour as you experienced! The CS Agents are not well trained, English is a second language (sorry, not their fault, but a challenge . . .).Soooo I have now shifted from Hawaiian to Southwest , or Alaska, even American to the mainland (American “better than Hawaiian”, I know). Oh, and remember the latest Marketing Strategy of Hawaiian they just announced, added charges now for ordinary seats!!!!
We fly Alaska Portland to Maui 2-3 times per year. I have been thrilled with the no change fee policy! I watch the sales and if the new fare is lower than I purchased my tickets for, I can call and the agent gives me the difference. Sometimes I do this twice for the same flight if I bought them really early.
Is this for regular main economy? And do you get the cash money back or does it convert to credit in your Alaska account? Thanks in advance.
Hi guys, good to see you. Too hard to write on this format. We used to be your neighbors just down the street. Love the Beat. Hope all is well with you both. Larry and Darlene
Hi LarryandDarlene.
So good to hear from you and thanks for those nice words. We both miss seeing you regularly and hope all is well.
Aloha.
In reply to Sheri S.
I didn’t know that! Thanks!
Our afternoon Hawaiian flight to Hilo (through Maui) was cancelled. They reissued a flight with a 6 hour layover. The best we could arrange was a no extra cost through Honolulu departing at 7 a.m. This means we must depart at 3:30 a.m. This is not ideal, but in these times, we were happy with the outcome.
Rob, Jeff,
The amounts were outrageous, but these seemed to be the difference between the fare at the time of purchase and the fare on the new date.
Other the cost of the different date, I think there no reason to complain. And, Jeff did the right thing – he bought 2 new tics and some money was credited back to your account.
To me, all it shows is Hawaiian Airlines has no more Aloha than any other airline. They are all in it for the Benjamins and that’s as it should be.
I know that last comment will get me a ton of downvotes. Just know we almost always fly Hawaiian to the islands.
Hi Rod.
Sorry if that wasn’t clear. No the actual online fair difference $85, as we indicated. The huge cost appears based on the fact that online fares are not offered either by the call center or when doing an online change.
Aloha.
We just changed our plans and had 2 round trip tickets to Oahu from LAX that I purchased thru Alaska. I had used Alaska miles and then their fee that goes along with the miles that amounted to about $250 for 2 round trip tickets. I called and spoke to a customer service rep, who immediately put the miles back into my account and refunded the $250 back to my credit card without any problem whatsoever… a credit was not even discussed!
I absolutely LOVE Southwest! We have flow them 3 times to Hawaii in the past year. Has always been an awesome experience. I would not fly any other airlines to Hawaii.
Aloha Rob & Jeff.
Interesting reading on flight changes. Hoping to travel to the Islands from Europe (London) in September and there have been Schedule changes from both Virgin out of London and then Hawaiian on the return from Maui to Lax. These two airlines are partners of sorts so you might think they would sync their schedules, but the changes almost made connections impossible. It’s tight, but just about makeable! Given travel arrangements, schedule changes can be very frustrating, and there seems little comeback. Nuisance, eh?
Very pleased with ease of changing flights with Delta’s new website feature that started in 2021. If the flight is available on their website, you can rebook multiple times prior to your departure date, and can even change departing and arriving cities. You pay the fare difference or receive a travel voucher if the new flight is cheaper. Phone support on the other hand takes longer and longer with Delta in 2022.
If we EVER get back to Hawaii – it will be on SWA.
There is something worse than Hawaiian Customer Service. It is Allegiant’s ‘No Customer Svc.’ We had booked/flown many times to FL to visit relatives. EZ airport to get to/from on both ends. I used points & a bit of cash for tickets. There was illness at the FL end & we had to cancel last minute. App did not work. Could not cancel/change online. There is NO number to call. No email address. I tried for hours, searching online for a way to contact them. Maybe to close to departure? I finally called the Credit Card company (Allegiant card) and disputed the charge due to my total inability to contact Allegiant. I got a few bucks back. Lost all my points. Later found an email addr but rec’d no ans. Put away the CC. Done with Allegiant.
Southwest and Only Southwest is transparent and completely flexible. I fly them exclusively (when I can) for this reason.
Let’s face it -traveling is not glamorous! Mahalo and Thank you for all the great info🌸
Hi Cheryl.
Thanks for the nice words and your feedback on change fees, or the lack thereof.
Aloha.
Twice in the last several years we’ve had to cancel our tip to Hawaii. Once for a servers health issue (we are healthy people!), but not severe enough for hospitalization. Once because we found Hawaiian’s mask policy for disabled people to be untenable… found Alaska’s was way better. The change fees were so high!
Luckily, we have a friend who has a friend, who was able to get us a refund with a mouse click or two. Hates to ask our friend, but come on.
Changing is not hard for the airlines, especially months in advanc. It’s just a huge money maker.
We never buy trip insurance, maybe we should.
Thanks for the article, BOH!
Hi Lanell.
Thanks. And good to hear from you and thanks for the input. As for the two of us, we have both only purchased trip insurance for international travel so far. And then it is needed in part because it provides international medical coverages. And by the way, the cost of trip insurance has just gone way up.
Aloha.
Very good information. I booked two one-way first class inter island tickets on Hawaiian in July, for flights in December. Yesterday I checked the price again and it was about $100 cheaper. I usually fly Southwest and can get the difference deposited into my travel funds, if the price goes down. I tried to change it online with Hawaiian (Not knowing their policies) and the price was about $240 more! Hidden change fees. Guess I can get a credit to my Hawaiian account and purchase the cheaper ones.
Yeah, unlike SWA, if a fare drops on HA, they don’t give you the difference. I did just get the Hawaiian Miles credit card with the 70,000 points so there are two free flights. I did just swap some SWA flights to the Big Island and saved $70 per person. I appreciate their non-expiration flight credits now. Comfort wise, Hawaiian (even to Australia). I just wished SWA had USB outlets on their 737 Max planes.