Scott's Cheap Flights We all should be in Japan right about now…😭 🇯🇵 ⛔

From: Scott's Cheap Flights - Monday Jan 17, 2022 03:09 pm

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In early 2021, we found incredible deals to Japan for fall 2021 and winter/spring 2022. At the time, we were hopeful Japan would reopen by the latter travel dates, but that’s looking increasingly unlikely. Flight Expert Willis has the scoop on what you should do if you’re also still holding on to a ticket to Japan—or anywhere else that’s still closed.

I’m a Flight Expert. I spend 40 hours per week searching for and sending cheap flights. I see so many deals, it takes a really amazing one to get me excited. But in late April of last year a deal came across my screen that got me all sorts of hot-and-bothered.

If you’ve been around for a while, you already know what deal I’m talking about: Tokyo, Japan from about a dozen US cities for less than $300 roundtrip. Without any hesitation, I snapped up 3 tickets for myself and my family–for a grand total of about $770. I picked dates as far down the line as possible–flying out in late February 2022–knowing that Japan’s re-opening timeline was anything but certain.

Now, here we are at the start of 2022, and it’s becoming increasingly hard to hold out hope that I’m going to be able to take this trip in February. So, am I sunk?

And are all you lucky cheap flights aficionados who grabbed one of these deals (or a deal to any other country that has yet to broadly reopen) sunk?

Maybe, but not necessarily. Let’s dig in.

🦅 Vigilance pays

The number one piece of advice I can give you is to be vigilant and know your rights.

Like many of our members, a few months after I booked my flight to Japan, I found out one of the legs of my itinerary had been canceled by American Airlines. These days, this is very normal. Throughout the pandemic, airlines have been altering itineraries left and right as they reconfigure their schedules to match up with ever-changing demand.

But they’ve not always been great about informing passengers. In fact, I never received any sort of communication from American Airlines about my flight change. I only discovered it because I checked my status on AA’s website once every couple of weeks, just in case (in the pandemic-era, you should do the same).

Why is this important? Because under federal law, if an airline cancels or ‘significantly changes’ your flight and you opt not to complete your chosen itinerary with them, you’re owed a full refund in your original form of payment. Full stop. No vouchers. No ifs, ands, or buts.

Now, you might say, “But Willis, that’s all well and good, but I don’t want a refund. That $202 I paid for my ticket to Japan will barely cover a ticket to Dayton these days!” And you’d be right (though I’ll get you to Dayton for $98, Scott’s honor).

But what that refund rule represents is leverage. Leverage that you may be able to use to get what you want from the airline.

💁 Help them help you

When I first saw my itinerary was changed, I didn’t do anything. I wasn’t quite sure if/when I wanted to go ahead with the trip, and the airline schedules were only open for a couple of months past the original dates, giving me little flexibility. But soon it became apparent that if I wanted to go to Japan, I’d have to change my dates. Here’s what I did to try to make that happen.

I got on Google Flights and I looked up an itinerary that closely mirrored my original one, but for several months further down the road. I made sure that all the airlines operating every leg of the flight were either on the ticketing airline (in my case, AA) or matched up with airlines on my original itinerary
I wrote down all the flight information for every leg of the flight, and called up AA
I explained to them that (a) a leg of my flight had been canceled, (b) I know I am entitled to a refund if I ask for it, (c) I love American and I’d much rather go ahead and fly, and (d) I’ve found an alternative itinerary I’d be happy to be rebooked on, if possible

By hinting to the customer service agent that I knew I was owed a refund if I chose not to fly, I gave them a strong incentive to work with me. And by offering a pre-researched clean itinerary, I made their job easy–all they needed to do was plug in the details, hope their computer system accepted the change, and send me on my way.

🍯 Catching more flies with honey

While there’s a solid chance that customer service will happily rebook you, it’s not a slam dunk. There’s an equally solid chance that the customer service agent will push back on you. In fact, while I got my Japan flights rebooked once, the next time I had a schedule change, the first customer service agent I spoke to gave me the cold shoulder, and the second one tried to rebook me only to be rebuffed by the AA computer system. In the end, rather than choosing the offered March or April travel dates, I opted to take a full cash refund.

If this happens, don’t be upset or indignant—a customer service agent’s decision to allow folks to choose a new itinerary when their original one is subject to a change is not an obligation, it’s a choice that’s one part strategy (they want to keep your $$ in their pockets rather than give you a refund) and one part courtesy (they want to do right by their customers).

If you’re denied, our best advice is to hang up and try calling back another time or two. Oftentimes customer service representatives have wiggle room on these things, and it just takes a little luck. And if luck isn’t on your side, at least you get your money back, in cash.

🏦 And what if your flight wasn’t changed?

Now, not everyone is so lucky to have been gifted the enormous chunk of leverage that is a significant flight change. If you booked a flight to somewhere that’s still not open, I’d definitely encourage you to hold out as long as possible, as these itineraries change all the time.

But if you find yourself coming up on your travel dates and nothing’s changed, you still might not be out of luck. Many airlines (including all three of the major US airlines) have been waiving change fees on some or all tickets since early on in the pandemic.

Take a look at the terms and conditions on your ticket, and see if that’s the case for you. If so, you’re usually not obligated to fly the same exact itinerary. So even though the $202 you spent on a Japan trip would only cover 1/6th of that same ticket today, you’re not on the hook for that $1,000 difference.

Instead, you can generally cancel your itinerary and take the unused value as a voucher for future travel. In the case of those Japan deals, they were all ticketed through either American or United.

If you’re based in the US, that makes for a very versatile voucher. Sure, maybe you won’t get to go to Japan for $202 roundtrip, but you can use that value to score a free trip to Grandma’s house in Des Moines, a bucket-list trip to Yellowstone, or even hold off and use it the next time a fare war results in $123 roundtrip fares to Hawaii. Not all is lost!

Willis Orlando
Senior Product Operations Specialist

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Scott's Cheap Flights We all should be in Japan right about now…😭 🇯🇵 ⛔