Airline Fees For Ticket Changes, Kids Flying Solo And Pets Flying In Cabin - See Charts

One of the biggest fees for making changes to your airline reservation is on United, US Airways, Continental, Northwest and American Airlines. The change fees on domestic tickets is $150 per ticket. Southwest Airlines currently has no change fee.

If you purchase a ticket at, let's say, $150 roundtrip and you are traveling with a family of four and need to make a change to your reservation, you would be out the entire $150 per ticket or $600 big bucks.

If you had bought your tickets on another carrier, such as Southwest, you would still receive your full 100% of your ticket value back to be used in airline credits that you can use towards another airline ticket.

If you are flying on an airline that has high change fees, a travel smart move to protect your travel dollars is with trip insurance. This usually costs about $6 to $8 per $100 of your airfare, and you should protect everyone traveling on the same policy. This umbrella gives the entire group protection.

If you have to cancel your trip due to an illness or family emergency, you can receive up to $500 back to cover your change fee. You must insure the entire amount of the airfare or vacation package or cruise.

For example, let's say you buy four airline tickets that cost a total of $1,000 on a major airline that charges $100 to $150 to make a change. You would pay approximately $60 to $80 for the travel insurance. If you cancel your trip, the airline is going to deduct $400 to $600 to change your tickets. The remaining balance can be used towards a future ticket on the same airline. Your travel insurance is going to reimburse you between $400 and $500 as part of your coverage for your $60 to $80 investment.

Another benefit under the same policy can be flight delay compensation, lost or misplaced baggage insurance and compensation for hotels and meals if you must stay overnight due to flight delays.

Bestfares.com uses AIG insurance. They have been around for years and really took care of our customers the week of September 11, 2001. To check out different policies that are available to you, please click here.

Note - all fees listed below are each way. Fees were valid as of December 4, 2008

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