Coming and Going

Refund Wars

UPRIGHT AND LOCKED

Refund Wars

Federal law says that airlines must give you a refund if you choose not to fly because your flight is late and the airline can't accommodate you within a reasonable time period-- generally interpreted as within two hours of your scheduled departure. So why have Harvey Van Veldhuizen and his wife been fighting with AirTran since August?

The District couple were slated to fly from Baltimore on a Friday to attend a family event Saturday in Milwaukee. Their AirTran flight was canceled because of mechanical problems , and AirT ran couldn't get the couple on another flight until Sunda y , the day they were slated to return. The couple didn't fly.

Ever since, AirTran has insisted that they get the refund from Travelocity , which the couple used to buy the tickets. Travelocity, noting that AirTran has the Van Veldhuizens' $748, tells them to get the money from AirTran .

Travelocity's Joel Frey told CoGo last week that although the refund should come from AirTran, Travelocity is crediting the Van Veldhuizens' credit card. AirTran spokeswoman Cynthia Tinsley-Douglas initially said that refunds must come from whoever sold the ticket, but she later researched the situation and determined that AirTran should have refunded the money."It wasn't handled right at the beginning, then slipped through the cracks," she said.

Where should you turn in a similar situation? Airlines interviewed by CoGo say that generally, when passengers pay either the airline or a third party by credit card for a domestic flight, the airlines put refunds on passengers' credit cards unless the money has not yet been transferred from the agency. There can be exceptions. Some airlines, United for example, require that refunds for tickets to most international locations be processed by the agency. Also, if you buy a consolidator ticket or one that is part of a vacation package, the airline might refer you to the travel agent, since the airline might not know what portion of the charge is for the plane ticket.

If you pay by cash or check -- something to avoid-- the airline generally sends the refund to you, with exceptions noted above, unless payment was prearranged as an agency refund or if the agent's address is the only one on file.

Van Veldhuizen notes that if he'd been flying a major carrier, it might have gotten him where he needed to be, because it either would have had more flights or, unlike discount carrier AirTran, would have put him on another carrier. Probably so, although even the major carriers have varied rules. Some, for example, will put you on another carrier under certain circumstances; others may do it at their discretion. To find out policies, check each airline's contract of carriage.

WALLET WATCH

A Puzzle for the Ages

When searching Expedia.com for fares between Washington and Bucharest, Romania, Laszlo Szimonisz of Sterling says, he discovered a weird anomaly: Senior fares were higher than regular adult fares. In fact, he said, the lowest senior fare was $178 higher than the lowest adult fare.

CoGo tested the site recently and got similar results: Searching the same dates and destinations, we found different options for adults than for seniors, and the senior fares were higher.

CoGo then tested Travelocity and Orbitz. Asking for a senior or an adult fare made no difference: the same airlines, flights and prices came up. No senior discounts, but not higher, either.

Airlines, not travel sites, set fares, so what's up with that? Szimonisz had e-mailed Expedia and gotten a non-answer in what was clearly an e-mail version of a form letter. Expedia initially couldn't explain the oddity to CoGo, and CoGo tested the site again. Again, Expedia came up with different flight options for adults than for seniors, but this time the senior prices were lower .

Further research by Expedia spokeswoman Katie Deines solved the mystery. Expedia uses a special, proprietary search platform when searching adult fares. For senior fares, it uses the so-called GDS search platform used by most online agencies. Thus, adult and senior fares on Travelocity will be the same, for example, unless given flights have senior discounts. Expedia, using two different platforms, might turn up different flights altogether, and the prices on the senior search might be lower or higher than adult prices, depending on what the different search mechanisms find.