Airlines offer flight credits or vouchers for a number of reasons. Perhaps the airline underwent irregular operations that adversely affected the original flight — or maybe the customer was forced to change the itinerary to a different flight because of an emergency. Those examples are two of many in which the airline offers a voucher or credit for a future flight — but should airline flight credits expire?
Should Airline Flight Credits Expire?
With the exception of canceling an airline ticket within 24 hours of booking the reservation, commercial airlines are typically loathe to refund customers the money they paid — so they offer a flight credit for the following reasons:
- The customer can only use the value of the flight credit on the airline which issued it — unlike a refund, from which the money can be used anywhere and not necessarily on the airline — so the airline is guaranteed to keep the money.
- Fewer than ten percent of the customers of airlines actually redeem their flight credits — which means that greater than 90 percent of the time, the airline can legally keep the money without having to do anything else because flight credits have expiration dates. As with gift cards, this is known as the “spoilage” rate.
“Airlines argue that credits are unused tickets they must account for in their systems”, Christopher Elliott explained in this article of Elliott Report as to why airline flight credits expire. “They don’t want the liability of hundreds of millions of dollars worth of unspent flight credits on their balance sheets.”
Because myriad types of flight credits currently exist, Charlie Leocha — who is the chairman and founder of Travelers United, which is an advocacy membership organization — opined in this article on airline flight credits: “Any flight credit, cruise line, or tour credit should be permanent. It is wrong to make customers jump through hoops just to use what is theirs. This is not a change that they had any control over. All transportation organizations should go into a personal travel bank. Customers who receive travel credits should be able to use the credit to purchase travel for anyone they desire.”
Final Boarding Call
I can understand the airlines creating their own rules in a situation where they are offering flight credits or vouchers to customers who have been inconvenienced — but for the most part, I have always been of the belief that if a customer spends his or her hard-earned money towards a product or service and is either not completely satisfied or experiences something which is out of his or her control, he or she should get a refund of the money he or she paid and not a voucher which limits where and when it can be used or redeemed…
…but because that is not the way business is conducted in the airline industry, check your membership account with the airline on a regular basis to see if you have any outstanding flight credits or gift cards which may need to be used before their expiration dates. If you do not have a membership account with an airline, at least keep a spreadsheet or some other type of documentation handy with the necessary information about airline flight credits or vouchers or gift cards.
I myself checked one airline and found I currently have a flight credit — which is weird because I have no idea how I earned it — and I need to use it before Sunday. December 31, 2023.
In my opinion, airlines should either offer full refunds to customers — or at least issue flight credits which never expire. I would certainly patronize any airline that offered either — or both — of those policies…
Photograph ©2019 by Brian Cohen.
