# The cost of a refundable vs. non-refundable (and/or partly refundable)



## Anderson (Apr 30, 2012)

Something that has come to mind about airline fares (and VIA, to a lesser extent) is that while the non-refundable, non-upgradable fares have come down /really/ far over the years compared to a "full service" ticket that is either refundable and upgradable or that is refundable less a charge under some circumstances.

I ask this partly because it seems to me that part of the reason the "no frills" carriers more or less killed the Legacy carriers isn't that they were able to work their way in by $10-20/trip in various markets, but also because the Legacy carriers' policies for their "competitive" tickets (i.e. the ones within $100 of the no frills' tickets) started coming with more and more restrictions as time went by.

This was inspired by an article on Virgin Atlantic's "flying roomettes" (the "Upper Level Suite", I think)...where they end up charging, say, $3500 for a non-refundable non-exchangable ticket on the low end and more like $10500 for a "full flex" ticket.

Part of what I'm wondering is why the airlines seem inclined to put such a massive "hurdle" in there, when it would seem that they could get both better customer relations and make more money by having the more flexible tickets fall in a more...er...affordable range (let's be honest, on a long haul flight, a price difference of 300% or so adds up), and then push the super-low-end ticket.

The other reason that I wonder about this is that on the Canadian (for an obvious example), you'll see the bedroom for one "supersaver special" (i.e. non-refundable) fare at about $1200-1400 for Vancouver-Toronto (I think), the "supersaver" (i.e. refundable less $100) at about $1600, and the "regular" at $2000. The only exceptions seem to be the demand-managed Express specials (non-refundable, non-exchangable) at about $600, which only show up in the off-season (and rarely at that).


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