The Use-It-Or-Lose-It Rule for Airline Tickets

The six largest U.S. airlines have changed their policies on non-refundable tickets in an effort to offset revenue losses. The "use-it-or-lose-it" rule makes such fares unusable after the ticketed date of travel if the traveler does not change the ticket prior to the scheduled departure time. If you need to change any leg of the flight, you must do so before the respective departure or the rest of the ticket will become worthless.

How Does This Effect SLAC Travelers?

SLAC’s procedure on lowest available airfare remains unchanged. You are still expected to use the lowest available airfare that meets the business requirements of the trip. We believe that the non-refundable ticket is still the most cost-effective way to travel. In most cases, you should know before the scheduled departure time if the ticket needs to be changed. If the ticket must be changed for legitimate business reasons, SLAC will pay the change ticket fee.

If your trip is cancelled for business reasons and you don’t know when the trip will be rescheduled, you can change the ticket to a far future date (up to one year in the future), and then change it again when you know the new dates of the trip. This would result in two change fees but would prevent a complete loss of the ticket. However, you must weigh the cost of the change ticket fees against the value of the ticket (i.e., if the sum of the change fees is less than the cost of the ticket, this would be a reasonable course of action).

Refundable Tickets

Refundable tickets should only be purchased if the dates of the trip are uncertain and the cost of exchanging the ticket would cause the non-refundable change ticket fees to be more than a refundable ticket.

Contact: Alison Minard, Travel Reimbursement Office, ext. 4346, aminard@slac.stanford.edu