Airline ticket adaptability holds immense significance, and in recent years, airlines have largely modified their policies to enhance flexibility. Nevertheless, a significant benefit of reserving an airline award ticket instead of paying in cash is the flexibility you gain.
Why is that? Usually, you can redeposit miles for an airline award ticket for a nominal fee, or often, at no cost with many programs. While revenue tickets can have flexibility, this typically manifests as a credit applicable to a future ticket, usually with an expiration date.
In this article, I aim to compare the change and redeposit policies for airline award tickets, as this area has seen considerable improvements recently.
## Examining Airline Award Ticket Change & Redeploy Regulations
How do the regulations regarding airline award ticket changes and redepositing stack up against each other among carriers? Let’s evaluate the policies of several major frequent flyer programs. Below is a summarized list, followed by a more in-depth discussion of the various policies, as there are instances of nuances and/or exceptions. Here are the rules of some well-known programs (costs are per person):
– Air Canada Aeroplan imposes a charge of up to 100 CAD for changes and up to 150 CAD for cancellations
– Air France-KLM Flying Blue requires €70 for changes and €70 for cancellations
– Alaska Atmos Rewards has no charges for changes and no charges for cancellations
– All Nippon Airways Mileage Club charges nothing for changes and 3,000 miles for cancellations
– American AAdvantage imposes no fees for changes and no fees for cancellations
– Avianca Lifemiles charges $150 for changes and $50-200 for cancellations
– British Airways Club has a fee of $55 for changes and $55 for cancellations
– Cathay Pacific Asia Miles charges $50 for changes and $120 for cancellations
– Delta SkyMiles has no fees for changes and no fees for cancellations
– Emirates Skywards charges $25 for changes and $75 for cancellations
– Etihad Guest charges up to 400 AED for changes and up to 75% of miles for cancellations
– EVA Air Infinity MileageLands charges $50 for changes and $0 for cancellations
– Finnair Plus has a fee of €50 for changes and €50 for cancellations
– Iberia Club charges €25 for changes and €25 for cancellations
– Japan Airlines Mileage Bank prohibits changes and charges 3,100 JPY for cancellations
– JetBlue TrueBlue charges nothing for changes and nothing for cancellations
– Qantas Frequent Flyer requires 5,000 points for changes and 6,000 points for cancellations
– Qatar Privilege Club charges $25-100 for changes and $25-100 for cancellations
– Singapore KrisFlyer charges $0-50 for changes and $50-75 for cancellations
– Southwest Rapid Rewards has no charges for changes and no charges for cancellations
– Turkish Miles&Smiles charges $70 for changes and $70 for cancellations
– United MileagePlus imposes no fees for changes and no fees for cancellations
– Virgin Atlantic Flying Club charges $100 for changes and $100 for cancellations
A few key points to keep in mind:
– Your main concern should be the policy of the program you use to book your ticket, rather than the airline you are flying with (in cases where you book a partner award)
– A change fee pertains to situations where you’re attempting to modify the date or time of your flight, while a redeposit refers to putting the miles back into your account after canceling a ticket
– I will not cover all frequent flyer programs (given that there are hundreds), but will focus on those that are either quite popular due to redemption options and/or are affiliated with major transferable points currencies
– For awards traveling to and from the United States, you can typically expect to cancel for free within 24 hours of booking, which allows for flexibility when making changes soon after booking
– In certain instances, higher-tier elite members may benefit from waived fees on awards, so consult the member benefits terms to see if that applies to your case
Now, let’s delve into the policies of each program in greater detail. I will also outline the deadlines for canceling or changing an award ticket.
### Air Canada Aeroplan
Although Air Canada Aeroplan is among my preferred frequent flyer programs, it doesn’t offer particularly lenient or straightforward policies regarding ticket changes and redepositing. As a rough guideline, expect a ticket change on a standard award to cost 100 CAD, while a ticket redeposit on a standard award will set you back 150 CAD.
Fees may be lower for higher-priced awards, and you can also anticipate higher costs for ticket refunds.