Refunds, Transparency, and More: New Passenger Protections in the FAA ReAuthorization Act of 2024

FAA Passenger Rights Changes

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[00:00:16] Nasreen: welcome back to another episode of Time to Talk Travel. My name is Nasreen. I'm here with Des and Ciaran, and we're going to talk about something that has a ton of U. S. air travel passengers super excited. It does not have a sexy name. But it is the FAA ReAuthorization Act of 2024.

What that really means is that you now have rights when you fly. Soon. Rolling out. Coming. impending . We're going to talk a little bit about what that means for travelers, what's covered, when it's coming out, and tips for things that you should be thinking about because air travel is different now and we're trying to keep everyone happy because it has not been a great experience lately, and I know you guys both have friends who have had some rotten experiences .

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I know everybody who went through all the Weather issues and tech issues and the whatever you want to blame it on issues in the last couple of weeks would have loved to have had to have seen this already in effect.

The bottom line is it does offer a whole lot of protections. The number one thing is automatic refunds. If your flight is canceled, it's no longer, Oh, you might get a credit . That's supposed to be the big hurrah about this whole thing. Again, I'm jaded. Until it's actually happening, who knows what the airlines can say to get out of it.

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Or, the fear is that fares are going to skyrocket because they're anticipating having to pay people for all of their screw ups and all of their issues. So they just have to take it out elsewhere. But, I do like a lot of the things that are included. Automatic refunds is the shining star but there are a few other things. Your vouchers are good for up to five years. There's a lot of information that they're now required to share. Like I always check if a flight's over two hours, how big is the seat? How much does it recline?

Now they have to let you know. The other big one as a parent is that they can no longer charge you to sit with your kids because, I'm sure you guys have had this too, flying with your kids. I had it flying home from Italy where I was seated maybe 10 rows away from my four year old and I was like, okay guys, this is great for me.

I'm going to have a very relaxing Good luck. That did get my son relocated next to me, but you know, there's a lot right now that will still charge you if you want to select your seat so that you can be with your small child. And if not, you're screwed. They can't do that anymore.

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That happened on a Delta flight.

I went to Twitter and fought that one hard. I took a photo of the gate agent and he was outraged. And I'm like, you're not helping me. And I will tell you, somebody from Delta came out and met me at the gate. They were like, we see you're upset. We understand why, we're fixing it.

I was like, that's what I needed.

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And so if you go in there now screaming about how you have rights, some of the areas of the law do not have to be in compliance until October 28th. And there is an expectation that some of the areas will not apply to tickets bought before October 28th. So for instance, one of the areas in here is that if you have a serious communicable disease that is documented through medical records, that you can cancel and get a full refund.

: 2025

[00:04:59] Nasreen: if you bought your ticket before then, it may not apply.

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For instance, my friend who was in London, they couldn't get her home for five days. She had to pay extra for the hotels and the food out of pocket and hope to God that she'd get reimbursed. Well, she did. It's been impossible for most people who were departing to get their money back.

I'm not a lawyer and I'm not a Congressman who was part of this vote so I don't know where all the little loopholes are going to be. I do appreciate the intent. This was something Pete Buttigieg pushed hard for, for years. I'm glad to see progress because I think everybody was really tired of being shoved around by the airlines. It felt like, sorry, too bad, so sad.

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[00:06:27] Nasreen: Spirit had, what did they have only Twitter help for the longest time? I don't think they have live customer service. Are they going to have to put that in?

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[00:06:37] Des: I have never been a Spirit fan, but I took them to Puerto Rico for the last Travel Writers Conference I went to. I was amazed. Amazed. Total about face on their service, on the plane, all of it. They felt like Southwest , 10 years ago, just comedians and so cool. And what can we do for you?

I mean, I was sitting in a seat that had a magic number. I got extra miles and it was just a party on the plane.

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[00:07:19] Des: three hours if it's domestic, six if it's

international. That's very, very important because there are a lot of times they find a magical way to get out of there at two hours and 52 minutes.

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The thing with the cash compensation is that if you do get significantly delayed, but then you still take the flight there you don't get the compensation for that. This bill does not cover that. It is intended for people who are not going to be traveling any longer to get refunds back easily.

And a full refund, it includes taxes and fees, even on non refundable tickets. They can offer you a voucher if they want to. And it has to have that five year expiration that Ciaran said before. You are not required to take it. You can tell them, no, I want my money back and they have to refund you. So expect to see some decent voucher offers because they want you to fly again.

They don't want to give money back. So I'm assuming there'll be an incentive for taking a voucher instead.

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That is supposedly already in effect.

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I mean, it could be quite lucrative for people who are involuntarily bumped. Naz, you had said that you had heard about a woman in Italy but I'm surprised because there's always that announcement.

Is anybody willing to not go on the flight? And it's always this game of chicken, this auction of how high will they go? Should I take this offer? Cause then I might get bumped without compensation if I don't take the offer, you know? But now it's pretty cut and dried.

If you're involuntarily bumped you get between two and four hundred percent of your original one way fare.

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And now it's maxed for internationals. For domestic over two hours it's 400 percent of your one way fare up to 1, 550. So I guess that would be about six grand if you paid 1, 500 for your flight, but not like what you're saying, Naz with the gal in Italy who's getting, what, 3, 600 a day.

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So unless people start canceling we have to essentially bump people every day until then. They put out this offer that was, we'll give you this much in flight vouchers every day. We'll get you on the first flight we can, if not, you're here until August 15th. And she's been doing this series where she shows up at the airport every day, sits there, does her work, she's a freelancer, she's able to do it from the airport, and she's just making vouchers every single day that are stacking up for future travel.

Now the one thing that was funny, because you can always tell. When people are deep into travel or travel writing and rules and regulations, because of course my thought process is going, well, that's great, but how close was she to her, number of days she could be in Europe, because they have those new regulations that we talked about.

Two weeks ago, three weeks ago on the podcast about how many days you can be in Europe within a 180 day period. You know, I hope she's checked that because

If she wants to go on vacation with those vouchers anywhere in Europe later, she needs to make sure she has enough days left.

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So we didn't have to deal with going into the city. Because my Boyfriend was coming back after two weeks and I was staying two months, we were on separate bookings. I was booked for the next flight first thing in the morning.

He was booked for one the next day, 24 hours later. It worked out, but it's only because I had the gold medallion, 800 number, all the other people around me were like, how are you already talking to somebody? I'm like, I have that magic number someone will answer that one in 10 minutes instead of two hours.

That's just, it stinks. Hopefully, with additional help to deal with these kinds of things, people won't end up facing those same battles. In the end. My boyfriend, who was supposed to go 24 hours later, they're telling me on the phone, sorry, we don't have another seat on that flight in the morning.

They took their medallion people and put them on the first one. And then people who had lower rankings later, the loyalty matters. They said, the only thing we have is a Delta one seat. And I said, put him in that. And they did. I will say, if you're caught in these situations, yes, the rules have changed.

And yes, there should be better enforcement, but there are still the basic go tos. Be kind to the staff. Don't be the asshole in the back, screaming. Everybody's in the same boat. Or on the same plane. You've got to still remember people are going to treat you how you treat them.

Not being the hellraiser is going to get you really far and getting whatever upgrade . I mean, I wasn't screaming at anybody on the phone and when she said, the only seat I have is this, and I said, okay, we'll take it. She made it happen.

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[00:14:12] Des: Luckily she made it. That's where you get into the hiccups with connecting flights . I'm a nervous wreck about those . I might take one flight into Boston and then Delta across, but the Boston flight was less expensive. I'm looking at rates and not necessarily, paying the 1, 500 fare if I can do it for 700.

I'm going to split up the airline. That's where we also need to keep in mind, leaving enough leeway in between flights.

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[00:15:13] Nasreen: Yeah. It's the same for me. I mean, I used to connect routinely. I would look for the cheapest tickets, even with family. I started to like nonstop more because of course you assume you're going to get there. But routinely now I will filter to only see nonstop options because with how much of a mess things are right now, I don't want to rely on making another flight.

Also, I used to be cool with the bargain airlines, the little regional ones and the special fares. However, I only do that now if I really don't have something going on that is time sensitive, because when people book to go to Disney on Allegiant, some of those flights only leave one or two days a week in each direction from those airports.

If something happens, How long does it take them to get you somewhere else? That's a gamble for me. And it's one I'm not really willing to make.

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You just need to make sure you're going to get there.

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So even if you purchased through Expedia and the airline ticket is on Delta. Generally on the purchase statement, it'll show that your purchase was actually from Delta under Expedia. That will cover 92 percent of travelers, they said, and require the airlines to pay because they are listed as the company that you're purchasing from.

And that's one of those things that you know They realized what everyone was going to try and do if they didn't specifically write it that way. So I do love that for it. One of the other things to note is that credit card refunds are required within seven days, but they have 20 days to get money back in any other form. It is definitely preferable to have that protection of a credit card when you're purchasing, just so that your money gets back to you faster.

Otherwise you could still have 20 days until you get a refund back.

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But a lot of people I know aren't. They're not living that life anymore. They're already maxed or they don't have credit cards, period. There were times in my life I didn't have a credit card. If I was stuck at the airport, I was stuck at the airport. I wasn't going off to sleep in a nice hotel for three nights or to live it up in London for three more days. I was stuck and I didn't have extra money to book a 4, 000 flight that would get me there sooner. I hate it for all the people who are where I've been. Who they're just out of luck. This is all great if it helps them, but like we said before, what good is it for an airline to say, okay, well, we'll reimburse your flight. I still have to get there. And now, because you're not flying, I have to get there and I have to pay four times as much to another airline that is flying. That sucks. It just sucks.

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They don't do that. Only some airlines have inter airline agreements to place you on another airline, Even without this law, in their contract of carriage for an airline, you can see whether they will place you with someone else or not. And if you're flying Spirit, Frontier, Southwest, Allegiant, any of the ones that are essentially bargain airlines, they are not going to place you on another airline.

So when your flight delay or cancellation happens, they are the only ones that you have a choice to rebook on, on the airline you originally were booked on. That is when people all of a sudden have to go to another airline and buy a ticket because of major disruptions and no availability. It does kind of force that financial hand.

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So then just tell them to book you on that flight and then you'll get your canceled money back, but who's going to pay the spirit . If say I booked four times more. Sure. You got your 800 back that you paid for that flight, but are you going to get the 3, 200?

No.

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Getting travel insurance for the whole trip. So not necessarily going through the airlines, going and putting in your trip details and getting a quote. You can look at how quickly the different travel insurance companies reimburse, and there are some that reimburse extremely quickly, some that will automatically pop a credit or a reimbursement in if they see your flight has gone past a certain time.

There are different built in things, so budgeting that little bit of extra money and cutting back somewhere else could really save you in the long run for this and is definitely something we would recommend. And then Des, I know you were saying there's some different things that you kind of have to watch out for with kind of the new atmosphere of air travel.

And one of them had to do with checking into your hotel.

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We can't give you your money back because it shows you checked in. She's just said never again will I do that online check in early. That's another life lesson. She never stepped foot in that room. But because the systems show she checked in, she can't get her money back anywhere.

Not from Delta, not from the hotel chain, any of it. I want to go back to travel insurance. Where can someone check on that information? Where can they get that info? Because I've had a lot of people ask me about travel insurance and I just usually go to an agent. But if there's a place, a central resource that they can check that will tell them where they rank.

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And it bases it off of that, your age, obviously if you're older, it's going to go up higher because they think there's a chance you might get ill or something might happen and you'll have to cancel. And of course there's risk factors and always read the fine print. I mean, it may say, don't go cliff diving.

We don't cover cliff diving. Then if you fall off a cliff, cliff diving and break your leg and miss your flight back and have to get one because of that, that's not going to be covered. There are always exclusions to read for, but definitely it can save you sometimes and get your money back, even if you do have to pay out of pocket a little bit, up front.

And I know that with the whole Delta thing, and I'm going to jump into this for a minute too, I was driving my son to the bus. I think you posted in the Facebook group that you run or something about the flights and Delta and computer outages. I saw it from you first.

I will say that, Des. And yeah, and I saw that it was happening and I'm like, okay, well, he's flying Delta and I can see that this is three airlines. We haven't heard anything from them. We Called and it knew his number and it's like, Oh, your flight's leaving on time. They did not communicate at all.

His flight was just a couple hours and they didn't say a single freaking word. He said he would not go out and take a picture for me at the airport. And I'm still a little salty with him because of that. But he said that the line in Boston for the terminal went from C all the way down the hallway into the next terminal for people to talk to somebody.

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This whole CrowdStrike thing, God help that company, if they're even existing anymore. I feel for Delta. I will say, I didn't feel for Delta when we were flying home from the Irma writers workshop I was at. I was sitting at a terminal in Dayton, waiting for my flight with five other writers. They told us your flight's delayed about an hour. We've got an issue where they can't shut the door. And this is right after one of the doors had flown off a plane. So we're like, Hey, make sure everything's secure. We really want that. And the gal sitting next to me said, it's total BS. They said the same dang thing on my flight coming here. It's how they're getting around these loopholes of, Oh, you're going to be three hours late instead of saying, Oh, we don't have our staff here or whatever the legit rule is. They're going, Oh, there's a problem with a door because they know darn well, nobody wants to get on a plane that might have a door fly off.

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Somebody's posting on Twitter that the gate agent told them that the mechanical issue has been going on for three hours and they don't know what's going on. So if you're a good enough sleuth, you can figure it out. But it's funny because the whole Delta thing with CrowdStrike. CrowdStrike said that their CEO reached out and offered to help for free multiple times because Delta took the longest to recover, right?

And they're saying that we reached out and attempted to rectify this problem faster and they did not want our help. But even just calling in, there should be a recording that says, we know there's an issue, blah, blah, blah, blah, not anywhere, not on the front of their site, I had to go into the news section of their site later that day to even find a mention of it.

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[00:27:49] Nasreen: Send bat signal.

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[00:27:55] Nasreen: yes, so, not to turn this into the Never Travel With Ryan show, which, seriously, I, so he did, his flight was originally at ten something in the morning, and I think he got out at three something in the afternoon. They were delayed for a long period of time.

But he got there the same day. Which is not what I can say for a lot of other people. He continued on to the airport. We had some life lessons around this trip that he was on. The two trips he's taken recently about, Plan B and having a backup and all that because we were talking about trains recently and train travel.

So this kid, man, don't get on an Amtrak with him. Last summer he took an Amtrak from New York city down to North Carolina, and I noticed along the way we have the family plan that he's just been sitting in the same spot in rural North Carolina for a long time. So I just Google something.

Tornadoes. There were tornadoes on the track ahead of them in North Carolina that took trees down. I texted him , are you stuck on the tracks? And he's yeah, we've been here for a while. And it was him and his younger brother.

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[00:28:59] Nasreen: yeah. And so basically they sat there for hours and hours and hours before they finally cleared it and were able to continue.

So Amtrak sent vouchers out for everybody who was on that train automatically. They didn't even ask for them. So let's just, you know, give Amtrak some props for that. Right. So he had the voucher to use. He's like, I'm going to go to New York city from Boston. Cool. Huh? Goes there. No problem. Is coming back.

They're reporting some computer outages that are slowing things down. Well, then all of a sudden I'm getting updates from him. They've unloaded them in Rhode Island somewhere. There's trees down on the track in Massachusetts and, in Rhode Island, apparently, and so now they're sitting, I mean,

He was supposed to get off a train in Boston at 8 and he arrived well after midnight, but they weren't clearly communicating how long it was going to take. I think it's an interagency issue because it involved the commuter rail in Boston, whatever. but they sent him another voucher off of a voucher that he had booked with.

And I said, please let people know when you book that third voucher so that everyone knows to not go on that train with you because you are bad luck. Okay,

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you got to go

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And. The tricky part about that is, we're talking about looking up buses, looking up other options. Well, it overlapped with the commuter rail, which was the main option. They had the same tree issue. But the other thing was it was showing Uber and Lyft availability. And you kind of rely on that if you can see that they're available, and every single time he put in for a ride, it would time out on denial, and I think people don't always consider that could happen,

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that at concerts where you're standing there and all of a sudden a 13 fare is 130 Because of high demand. Are you serious? Or they cancel while you're standing two minutes away and then all of a sudden it's gone.

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[00:31:38] Ciaran: One more thing, I wanted to jump back for the insurance. Just a little tip that I have with insurance is if you travel a lot, for business or for pleasure, you can get an annual policy.

It's really not that expensive if you travel frequently. And I also love Allianz. I think my last policy was 250, but that was for the whole year and all of my trips.

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When I lived in Texas, rental car insurance was not included in the annual plan because it just wasn't part of Texas coverage in general. If you were renting a car for a long period of time, adding whatever add-on insurance they offered would be recommended because it wasn't covered under the rest of the travel insurance.

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[00:32:42] Nasreen: fun fact. So we are hoping that the friendly skies that have been very unfriendly, maybe go back to neutral or like a little friendly, maybe not, ulcer inducing. Is that what we're hoping for?

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[00:33:08] Nasreen: The wave is coming. Okay. Well, until next time, on Time to Talk Travel Podcast with a more uplifting, I mean, we should be happy about this. It is an uplifting topic. It's the light at the end of the tunnel. Until next time.

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[00:33:24] Ciaran: Safe travels.

too.

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