Timeline for answer to What’s the point of flight ticket cancellation charges? by TooTea
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
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15 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Aug 21, 2020 at 20:23 | vote | accept | hb20007 | ||
| Aug 21, 2020 at 13:32 | comment | added | Relaxed | @Flater You might be right about that, there seems to be a lot of confusion in the question. I still think that explaining the background for these fees is highly relevant and that the other answers do a much better job of dispelling the confusion. | |
| Aug 21, 2020 at 13:25 | comment | added | Flater | @Relaxed: OP's question is asking why airlines charge cancellation fees, because why would any customer bother paying an additional cancellation fee? This logic is built on the presumption that the ticket is already not being refunded. That presumption is wrong, which is what this answer addresses. | |
| Aug 21, 2020 at 13:23 | comment | added | Relaxed | @Flater Huh? The OP asked “what's the point” and explicitely asked if someone could elaborate on the link between this and revenue optimization systems. Why is exactly what the question is about. | |
| Aug 21, 2020 at 13:18 | comment | added | Flater | @Relaxed: revenue optimization and price discrimination is irrelevant to the consumer's bottom line. The core of the answer that OP needed to hear is that a cancellation fee implies making a partial loss of the cost of the ticket, as opposed to making an additional loss on top of losing the ticket. Why the airline chooses to have cancellation fees or not is irrelevant. | |
| Aug 21, 2020 at 10:11 | comment | added | Relaxed | @V2Blast Good thing I did just that in my second comment, then. But even if weren't case, what do you suggest? Downvoting silently? Never downvoting unless I know enough to provide an answer? None of these options seem better to me than a quick factual comment. | |
| Aug 19, 2020 at 18:14 | comment | added | user77454 | @hb20007 They're actually counting on this. Most flights are overbooked intentionally by the airline because they know X number of people are likely to not show up. That's why sometimes, while waiting to board, you'll hear an announcement that the flight is overbooked and that they need some passengers to take incentives to change flights. | |
| Aug 19, 2020 at 12:32 | comment | added | Relaxed | Fair enough but I would urge the OP not to accept it prematurely. In particular, you're not addressing the revenue optimization/price discrimination issues at all. | |
| Aug 19, 2020 at 11:47 | comment | added | TooTea | @Relaxed I'm sure it does, but I don't have time to write a doctoral dissertation on this topic. I will gladly delete the answer if a better one shows up. | |
| Aug 19, 2020 at 11:32 | comment | added | Relaxed | This answers misses many things. | |
| Aug 19, 2020 at 10:59 | vote | accept | hb20007 | ||
| Aug 19, 2020 at 14:26 | |||||
| Aug 19, 2020 at 10:55 | comment | added | hb20007 | I see. So basically airlines want people to pay and not show up | |
| Aug 19, 2020 at 10:46 | comment | added | TooTea | @hb20007 Some airlines in the world practise overbooking (selling more tickets than there are seats on the plane). Some of the passengers will then be "on standby", so they won't get a seat assigned on check-in, but only at the boarding gate if someone with an assigned seat doesn't show up. If everyone shows up, the airline has to refund or rebook the standby passengers. | |
| Aug 19, 2020 at 10:42 | comment | added | hb20007 | "if there are any standby passengers, the airline gets paid twice for a single seat." What do you mean by this? | |
| Aug 19, 2020 at 10:32 | history | answered | TooTea | CC BY-SA 4.0 |