airline travel vouchers

Do you know where your pandemic flight credits are?

[This is a slightly different version of a story we wrote for NBC News]

When the pandemic hit, Vanessa Mumford-Minshull of Campbell, CA scrambled to cancel a multi-leg, multi-airline European trip for four people. She asked for refunds. Airlines automatically issued vouchers. “I sent email saying, ‘I don’t want this,’ but got no answer,” says Mumford-Minshull, who spent days calling, writing, and documenting her efforts before finally getting refund help thanks to her credit card company. “With the vouchers, there were too many unknowns due to COVID-19,” she said, “I could have lost almost $4,000.”

Millions of other travelers who accepted or were issued travel credits or vouchers are pulling the emails out now that a year has gone by, vaccination rates are on the rise, and cities are reopening to visitors. Many hopeful flyers are discovering their credits will expire before they get to use them. Others will find that the vouchers have restrictions that make them difficult to use

Besides dashed travel hopes, there is a great deal of money at stake. Companies still deliberating when to restart non-essential business travel may be sitting on hundreds of thousands of dollars of unused travel credits, notes corporate travel management company TripActions. And airlines, which recently received billions of dollars in a third round of federal pandemic funding relief,  are holding billions in unused vouchers.

“I can say with confidence there are more outstanding travel vouchers right now than have existed ever before, given the number of trips that got disrupted simultaneously because of the pandemic,” says Scott Keyes, founder of Scott’s Cheap Flights.

What to do to if you have pandemic travel credit or flight vouchers

If you accepted or received airline travel credits or vouchers for a trip canceled due the pandemic, experts say check the expiration dates right away and start reading the fine print. If the expiration date has not passed and you do not have travel plans just yet, call and ask the airline to extend the date. (It is worth a try even if the expiration date has just passed). Given the Centers for Disease Control’s advice to continue avoiding non-essential travel and shifting COVID-19 hotspots, airlines may be willing to do this.

“For those consumers who have unused vouchers, it’s critical that they stay on top of this and be aware of the expiration dates,” says William McGee, Aviation Adviser to Consumer Reports, which logged more 700 consumer complaints and stories about vouchers and refunds in less than a week.

To try to help travelers figure out their options, McGee says he did a deep dive into policies being offered by ten U.S. carriers and found that the best and most transparent policy was from Allegiant Air, which set the expiration for its travel vouchers at two years from the initial date of purchase. He says other policies “are confusing, and the expirations can vary greatly based on date of booking, date of travel, date of cancellation,” and other factors.

Here are links to the current rules and policies of Alaska Airlines, American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, Frontier Airlines, Hawaiian Airlines, JetBlue, Southwest Airlines, Spirit Airlines, and United Airlines. You will notice for example, that American Airlines has 3 types of travel credit – Flight Credit, Travel Vouchers, and Trip Credit – and that United Airlines’ travel certificates are now good for up to two years after the date they were issued.

Some other tips to keep in mind

While you should be able to use your travel credits or vouchers to book the same or a different itinerary, you will be shopping for your new tickets at new prices. And, as travel picks up and pent-up demand for travel increases, you may need to throw extra money in the pot to get the flights you want.

If you know where you want to go but are not sure when you will feel comfortable flying, the experts at Scott’s Cheap Travel suggests you use your travel credits to book a flight on an airline that is still offering free changes on all fares. “While you’ll have to pay the difference if the fare rises, “you’ll be able to change dates without an extra fee and you won’t lose the value of your voucher.”

Beyond that, “our biggest advice,” says McGee of Consumer Reports, “is to stay persistent.” This was Consumer Reports’ advice last year when advising consumers about airline refunds at the start of the pandemic and the same holds true with vouchers a year in, says McGee. “It may take four or five or even more emails, calls, and letters,” but the success stories come from those who are persistent. 

Airlines continue coronavirus response

Alaska Airlines has added a “Peace of Mind’ cancellation and fee waiver policy to help travelers worried about what might happen next with the coronavirus.

The peace of mind waiver doesn’t apply to flights you may have booked months ago, only for new bookings.

But if you book a flight prior to March 12 and then decide by that date to change or cancel your trip, this might help. If you decide to cancel, Alaska is offering full travel credit for a flight up to one year from the issuance of your credit. Although fare differences when you rebook will appy.

JetBlue announced a similar program earlier in the week:

“Due to evolving coronavirus concerns, we are suspending change and cancel fees for all new flight bookings made between February 27, 2020 and March 11, 2020 for travel through June 1, 2020,” JetBlue says.

The airline notes that there are no current travel restrictions to the locations they fly. But it seems travelers have jitters and airline bookings are down everywhere. So JetBlue, Alaska and likely others shortly – will be taking action to reassure travelers and encourage them to continue getting on planes.

How are coronavirus concerns affecting your travel plans?

United Airlines makes good on $10,000 bump fee

Here’s a good airline story to kick off the New Year

There are travel sites that promise to go to bat for you should you have an issue with an airline, hotel or some other outfit you may give your money and business to on the road.

Most of the time, that’s not what we do here at StuckatTheAirport.com.

We stick mostly to telling you about great adventures and cool amenities to explore when you’re in an airport, on a plane or in a town.

But if someone asks for advice or help with a travel problem, we do our best to help.

That’s what happened when Annie, a childhood friend of ours, reached out.

She’d had a scary and frustrating trip from Newark to Los Angeles over Thanksgiving and wanted help getting United Airlines to give her and her husband the $10,000 they were offered for volunteering to give up their seats.

Problem was she had no paperwork showing that the hefty vouchers had been promised.

Here’s her story:

On the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, we were flying from Newark to LA on United.

We were in the air briefly when the pilot announced we were going back to Newark as the plane lost an engine.

Arrived safely. They attempted to fix the plane but gave up after several hours.

When they announced a new plane, we went to the new gate with a newly assigned seat electronically.

Then they announced they needed 50 volunteers to give up their seats at $5k voucher per person. You can imagine many people started scrambling including me. It was chaos. I backed away when I saw the chaos. The flight kept getting delayed as they waited for food service. Then the crew timed out. Then they announced they needed more volunteers.

I got to the front of the line. A supervisor gave me a new boarding pass for the next day that said: “See agent.”

We waited around for a while to see if we would get hotel voucher. It was still chaotic, and some people were getting heated…. No one said how we can claim our vouchers.

We got our own hotel at Newark. I figured I can pay 150.00 if I am going to get 10k. …. I assumed we would hear from United via email.

When we didn’t, I reached out on-line about two weeks ago. I have been dealing with someone from Customer Service who said we should have received the vouchers at Newark. She has been reaching out directly to Newark but hasn’t gotten any response.

Trust me, we didn’t give up our prime seats for no compensation!

Sometimes, things work out!

To be honest, we weren’t at all confident Annie and her husband would be able to collect their vouchers since they had no documentation in hand.

But when we asked our United Airlines contact where to send Annie to get help, they said they’d have Customer Service get in touch.

And they did.

Now we are pleased to report that the Customer Service person who investigated this issue quickly – as in less than a dayon the day before New Year’s, no less – figured out that yes, indeed, these two travelers were in fact due $5,000 each in bump compensation.

Apologies were offered. And now those vouchers have been issued.

Good work United Airlines!!!

Moral of the story?

If you volunteer to be bumped off a flight in exchange for $50 or $5,000, never leave the counter without getting the voucher placed in your hand.