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[mindz]

We have to often travel with the whole family to conferences and other work related visits. Sometimes due to kids health or other reaons we have had to change flights or travel dates. So far I have been unsuccessful at finding an airlines with minimal penalty for change of dates. The best I find is 150$ penalty per ticket if we change travel dates in Continental or United.

I am fine with using the ticket for changing to a future date with minimal penalty..Any suggestions? Usually non refundable tickets are way more expensive to go that route.

[_touchedbyanoodle_]

Some airlines let you by travel insurance for $10-30 dollars, which will let you avoid fees for rescheduling. You might want to start asking about that. I'm not sure which airlines have it and which don't.

[mountainguy]

Southwest Airlines is probably your best bet. They will allow you to apply the monetary value of your ticket to other Southwest flights for up to 12 months. Full details here.

Frontier Airlines also has some decent options. I booked a flight using "classic" option recently (which is basically the mid-point between a fully refundable and nonrefundable ticket), and it only worked out to around $50 more than what the nonrefundable ticket would have been.

[lurkingfear]

One of the nice things about United is if you book a trip using miles, there is no charge to change it. The only hitch is that you can only change the date if a flight is available that would take the same amount of miles, so you have to be a little flexible with the date you are trying to change it to, and of course it doesn't work well around holidays when the 'saver' awards get booked up. That said, I changed my return flight from xmas twice last year at no cost and with no extra miles.

[crowie]

Be careful about the "travel insurance" they offer to tack on to a ticket mentioned by TBAN--in my opinion, looking at the fine print, the rules on such insurance are so restrictive that they are not worth it.  Basically you can only change for dire reasons such as death and illness (and I'm not sure but it may be only the illness of the traveler him/herself, not family members, but that may vary), it does not give you carte blanche to make a change for any reason.

There is such a thing as a refundable economy ticket and most airline website search forms have a box you can check for that.  But of course they are (often much) more expensive.  Indeed, if you did want to get a refundable (aka "full fare") economy ticket I would look at the cost of a business class ticket and see how much difference there is between them--I am pretty sure that all or almost all business class fares are refundable by definition.

For flexibility at a low cost, Southwest is definitely the best as MG said.

Edited to add that I just found this:

http://www.bestfares.com/news-newsID1371-Domestic_Airlines_Change_Fee_Chart.html

[parispundit]

One of the nice things about United is if you book a trip using miles, there is no charge to change it. The only hitch is that you can only change the date if a flight is available that would take the same amount of miles, so you have to be a little flexible with the date you are trying to change it to, and of course it doesn't work well around holidays when the 'saver' awards get booked up. That said, I changed my return flight from xmas twice last year at no cost and with no extra miles.

Not true any more. I just did this on United and they charged $150.

[madhatter]

Edited to add that I just found this:

http://www.bestfares.com/news-newsID1371-Domestic_Airlines_Change_Fee_Chart.html

That table is two years old.

[crowie]

Well it's a start, anyhow, and having flown (and canceled/changed tickets) on almost all the airlines listed recently (6-12 months), they have not changed much if at all. 

[missemily]

Be careful about the "travel insurance" they offer to tack on to a ticket mentioned by TBAN--in my opinion, looking at the fine print, the rules on such insurance are so restrictive that they are not worth it.  Basically you can only change for dire reasons such as death and illness (and I'm not sure but it may be only the illness of the traveler him/herself, not family members, but that may vary), it does not give you carte blanche to make a change for any reason.

Not to derail, but if you get travel insurance and have to file a claim, don't give up if your claim is denied. File an appeal, and keep at it. I had to change a flight that I had bought insurance for. To make the initial claim, I had to send supporting documents, including a death certificate stating cause of death for a relative that died, necessitating the change of flight. The insurance company denied the claim, saying that the fees incurred for the change were not change fees but a rate increase. The appeal dragged on for a month or more as I gathered supporting statements from Travelocity. I was finally successful in getting the refund, but it was a tough fight. Moral of the story: If you buy travel insurance and have to file a claim, don't give up.

Note: In my case, I had booked the flight to see a relative who was seriously ill. When he died earlier than expected, I had to change the flight. Neither Travelocity nor the insurance company questioned that the death was a qualifying event, but the insurance company, for some bizarre reason, argued that I was trying to get reimbursed for a rate increase.