Should I cancel my flight and rebook?

March 22, 2024 9:18 AM

I booked a ticket on Delta for a domestic flight in the US, and paid the extra fee to make the ticket fully refundable (at the time, I wasn't entirely sure of my plans). Since then, the price of the same flight has dropped to about half of what I paid for my ticket. Does it make sense to cancel my original ticket and book a new one at the current price? Am I missing any potential pitfalls here?
posted by Mender to Travel & Transportation (5 answers total)

Best answer: You should absolutely do this, even if weren't refundable, they would give you e-credits for a future flight. I do it all the time.
posted by mcgsa at 9:28 AM on March 22 [12 favorites]

What mcgsa said.
posted by praemunire at 9:30 AM on March 22

Best answer: Go for it, totally allowed.

One thing I've noticed with AA recently is when I cancelled and rebooked (to change the return date, as it was easier then going through the phone system) the refund went to flight credit instead of back to the card, but after an email (and a couple of week wait)-- it finally got refunded back to my card.

A nice little hint a friend does is that they always do the 'put ticket on hold' before they book, and then just before that hold expires, they recheck the price and book on whichever is cheaper (new vs. held).
posted by Static Vagabond at 9:35 AM on March 22 [5 favorites]

And double-yes to Static Vagabond, the same thing happened to me where I had to follow-up to get the flight credit to a refund and make sure to buy/hold the new flight before cancelling the old.
posted by RoadScholar at 10:04 AM on March 22

Response by poster: Done! Thank you all.
posted by Mender at 10:13 AM on March 22 [1 favorite]