Can you get a refund on airfare if the price drops?

If the price falls on your airfare and you’ve already bought your ticket, does it make a sound? (Cha-ching?)

I had heard that if you booked a ticket and then the price went down, there was some way to get a refund for the difference. This came to mind when I was worrying about how early to buy plane tickets for my BlogHer trip. I wondered if it was a real thing or an urban legend (a la angry naked hippies at Arcosanti).

They do exist (the refunds – not the angry hippies) but only under very specific circumstances, and they’re increasingly rare. Here’s how to increase your chances on spotting airfare price drop refunds in the wild.

Read the fine print (for real this time)!

Here are some things to keep an eye out for:

• Is the ticket refundable, partially refundable, or nonrefundable? Policies can vary within an airline depending on what type of ticket you buy. Hint: If it’s a low price ticket, it’s probably nonrefundable.
• Refunds are often in the form of a voucher or credit towards a future flight (especially if you’re buying cheap tickets), not actual cash or money back on your card.
• Some airlines charge hefty change fees that may outweigh your potential refund or require the price to drop a certain minimum amount before it’s eligible.
• The lower fare may have to be on the exact flight you booked originally.
• Advance purchase may be required for a refund.

With all this in mind, you may be able to purchase a ticket that offers some kind of refund if prices later drop. This made me feel better about buying tickets earlier than recommended.

Examples from actual airlines

Before I bought my tickets, I checked into the policies of these carriers (because they had low fares for cities I was flying to). Here’s how they apply some of the rules above:

• Alaska Airlines: If you book via their site and find a lower fare there within 24 hours, you can request a refund for the difference. After that, lower fares for the same itinerary are eligible for a credit towards a future flight or – if you have a fully refundable ticket – a refund in the original form of payment.
• Southwest does not charge change fees, so you should be able to just rebook if you find a lower fare on their site. Depending on the ticket type, the difference will either be refunded to the original form of payment or be issued as credit towards a future flight.
• U.S. Airways has a “lower fare guarantee,” but they deduct change fees if you try to take them up on it. Change fees are $150-$200 per passenger for domestic flights, and $150-750 per passenger for international flights. So the lower fare would have to be a whole bunch lower than what you paid for it to be worthwhile, which seems unlikely – even on the best possible day.

How do you know if the fare drops?

You can check online again when you think it’s likely to be higher, sign up for fare alerts from your airline (if they offer them), or sign up for a fare alert service. Although I haven’t tried any of them at this point (and can’t vouch for them), I came across a few services for email fare alerts while I was researching: Airfare Watchdog, FareCompare, and Yapta.

More information

If you want to keep reading, here are a few more resources to check out:

• Getting a Refund When Airline Ticket Prices Drop (article)
• Airline rules for obtaining a voucher (list of airline refund rules)
• Chart: Airline fare drop refund policies (this seems a little out of date, but I still found it to be a helpful starting point)

Have you ever gotten a fare drop refund? Or tried a fare alert service? Leave a comment about your experience – I’d love to hear about it!

Disclosure: This post is for informational purposes only. The airlines can change their policies at any time, so you’ll want to do your own research. I did not receive any compensation from any of the companies listed and am not endorsing any of them.