7 Airline Travel Tips – Passenger Rights You Probably Didn’t Know You Had

With summer travel right around the corner, I thought it might be a good idea to do a post on your rights as a passenger when flying.  Did you know you have rights?  Yes, yes you do.  A lot of them are new rights, born out of long taxy-times on the runway {i.e. sitting cooped up in a plane with a screaming toddler longer than humanly possible}, and over-abused fees.

Since I travel quite a bit, and am pretty aware of where each penny goes, I thought I’d put a together a list of the most common rights you might want to know you have:

1. If your flight gets delayed or cancelled, it’s your chance to be your own advocate for making a raw deal a happier situation.  You can ask for vouchers for restaurants in the airport, you can ask for more frequent flyer miles, and occasionally, you can even get a free ticket for another time.  If you don’t ask, you’ll never know.  Plus, I figure, the worst thing that can happen is they say “no” and judge me.  Big deal.  I am in an airport in a city I don’t live.
2. Taxes and fees.  Airlines are no longer allowed to charge hidden taxes and fees at the end of your transaction.  They are required to let you know the full cost of the ticket {and any baggage fees} right up front.  So, when you hit the purchase button, you should know exactly what you’ll be paying.
3. If you purchase a ticket and then realize that you need to change or cancel it altogether, you can totally do it penalty free within 24 hours of ordering the ticket.  This doesn’t really help you if a week before your scheduled to leave something comes up, but it does allow you to change plans within a small window.
4. Flight cancellations, schedule changes, or route changes all entitle you to a complete refund.  If it doesn’t work for you, you get your money back.  Unfortunately, that might mean a flight that does work costs more than what you originally paid.
5. If  you are involuntarily bumped from your flight, you are entitled to double the price of your ticket, up to $675–and that’s if they can still get you to you on a flight within two hours of your originally schedule flight.  If it takes more than two hours, they are required to offer you quadruple the price of your ticket, up to $1350.
6. Lost luggage sucks.  It’s why I ALWAYS pack light and carry-on, but if that isn’t a possibility, you are entitled to compensation for lost luggage.  Usually that means around $50 a day to replace incidentals, like toiletries and undies {it varies from airline to airline, though}.  Warning:  the airline might only reimburse you for your purchases, not provide you with the money up front, though.
7. Finally, due to long waits on the runway, the Department of Transportation has issued a rule that airlines cannot make passengers wait on the tarmac for more than 3 hours without deplaning passengers.  {Unless there is some sort of security risk.}  Passengers sitting on the plane for more than two hours are required to be provided food, water, and access to the bathroom.

There are actually tons of rules and regulations when it comes to passengers of flights, but I thought those were the ones most people run into most often.  Do you have any to add?

~Mavis

**I should probably note that these rights typically only apply to domestic flights.  Other countries have their own rules.