HELP! Will EZ Air cancel my return flight if I don't take the inbound flight?

[bonnie777]

Hi, hope someone can ease my mind. We are sailing to Alaska from Seattle on Princess Discovery on August 10. We had a whole 3 week West Coast trip planned but health issues meant that we can only go on week 3 - the cruise. So we are now flying into Seattle from a different city than we booked on EZ Air. So I want to cancel that leg (I know it's non-refundable but is there also some kind of penalty? It's only $250 fare for both of us) but KEEP the cruise and KEEP the EZ Air flight back to our home city. I'm getting the sense from Princess (they say it's a "round trip" even though it's different cities and different airlines) that if we don't show for the inbound flight, they will cancel the outbound flight - and charge a 100% cancellation fee? can they do that?Apparently EZ Air is not available until tomorrow (Monday) but does anyone have any advice or insight here? Thank you!

[CruiserBruce]

The AIRLINE would be the one to cancel the return leg, if you no show the first leg. Yes, they will do that.

 

If you legitimately change the booking, the return leg will not be canceled. 

[hallasm]

Yes, if you do not show up for the first flight, the return flight will be cancelled.
You indicate the health reason. Check whether your travel insurance covers the cancellation.

[BOB999]

As others stated, the bigger risk comes from the airline(s) themselves.  Airlines can and do cancel the remaining portion of reservations when one no-shows.  So if this were a simple round-trip or multi-city booking on one airline, the chances are very high it would be cancelled.

 

The complicating factor is that you are on different airlines so depending on the individual airlines involved EZ Air may have booked two one-way tickets, even if they are nominally linked on one Travel Agent PNR.  In that case, would say United cancel a reservation on Delta?  Maybe, maybe not.  Still I would call EZ Air tomorrow and see if they can cancel your outbound ticket. 

Edited August 4 by BOB999

[FlyerTalker]

That $125pp price indicates that this is some VERY special ticketing arrangement.  Definitely want to be getting the straight scoop from EZ directly.  Without knowing the fare rules, anything else would be pure speculation at best.

 

 

[bonnie777]

The two flights are on different airlines, so I don't know why one would even know about the other (other than that they are both booked through EZ Air). The first leg is on Delta and I tried to cancel on the Delta site but they say it is booked through a 3rd party so I have to go to EZ Air to cancel.

 

So is there anything we can do to avoid the cancellation of the United flight after the cruise? I just don't see why being unable to make one flight means they can cancel the other flight...

 

We have the basic travel insurance with Princess, I don't think it covers airfare. And next time I will definitely pay closer attention to which credit card I use to pay with.

 

It looks like we may have to fly into Redmond just to use this leg of the flight....

 

[bonnie777]

The inbound flight is Redmond OR to Seattle so it's not a very expensive flight. It can be as low as $79.

[bonnie777]

One more tidbit, while they are different cities and different airlines, apparently EZ Air considers them to be a round trip. Perhaps my best chance is to have someone at EZAir unlink them so one can be cancelled? Thank you to everyone for your thoughts...

[CruiserBruce]

3 minutes ago, bonnie777 said:

The two flights are on different airlines, so I don't know why one would even know about the other (other than that they are both booked through EZ Air). The first leg is on Delta and I tried to cancel on the Delta site but they say it is booked through a 3rd party so I have to go to EZ Air to cancel.

 

So is there anything we can do to avoid the cancellation of the United flight after the cruise? I just don't see why being unable to make one flight means they can cancel the other flight...

 

We have the basic travel insurance with Princess, I don't think it covers airfare. And next time I will definitely pay closer attention to which credit card I use to pay with.

 

It looks like we may have to fly into Redmond just to use this leg of the flight....

 

Gee...all these additional facts are kind of important,  and nice to know...

[Globaliser]

1 hour ago, bonnie777 said:

Apparently EZ Air is not available until tomorrow (Monday) but does anyone have any advice or insight here? Thank you!

 

I reckon that EZ Air are the people you need to talk to. You don't say who at Princess you've already been talking to, but if they're not EZ Air, then there's a decent chance that they're just parroting some common lines that they remember about air travel without knowing any of the rules or policies either of EZ Air or of the airlines, and probably without knowing many of the relevant details about your tickets.

 

If you're on two different airlines, then there's a good chance that you have two separate one-way tickets. If you have been given ticket numbers, then check those straight away. A ticket number is a 13-digit all-numeric number. The first three digits are a code for the airline that has issued the ticket. If each person has two ticket numbers, each starting with a different 3-digit code, then you've been issued separate one-way tickets for the two halves of your air travel. (Of course, obviously each person's ticket for each half of your travel should start with the same 3 digits as every other person's ticket for the same half.) In this situation, there's a better chance that neither airline knows what's been booked with the other airline, and wouldn't know whether or not you flew with the other airline.

 

But you need to check with EZ Air about its policies, too. Although it sounds plausible that you'd forfeit the money paid for the flight(s) you're not going to take, it would be uncommon to have to pay an additional penalty. If you hear about a "100% cancellation fee", airlines usually use that to mean that they will keep 100% of what you've paid - ie you just don't get anything back.

 

If you're able to cancel the first half of the air travel, then you may be entitled to get a refund of (genuine) taxes, fees and charges - the amounts that would be paid to airports or the TSA by the airline, but won't now be. But again, you should ask EZ Air about this.

 

BTW, usually, the outbound flight refers to the first half of your travel - ie when you're flying out from your origin point. The inbound flight is when you're returning back in to your point of origin. It's worth avoiding jargon and industry terms unless you know what they mean. It didn't do any harm when I had to read your post several times to understand what your problem is, but you don't want to confuse the situation when you're talking to EZ Air.

 

  

3 minutes ago, bonnie777 said:

One more tidbit, while they are different cities and different airlines, apparently EZ Air considers them to be a round trip.

 

If you haven't spoken to EZ AIr yet, how do you know this? Personally, I wouldn't trust a general call centre agent at a cruise line to know anything much about air travel, just like I wouldn't expect an airline call centre agent to know anything about cruises.

[bonnie777]

I'm very sorry to have been confusing! To me, the flight into Seattle was inbound and the flight out of Seattle was outbound. Especially since they were not part of a round trip flight. I did not even realize there were specialized meanings, thank you for the explanation.

 

You are correct, the two legs have different 3 digits (006 for Delta, 016 for United). That's helpful to know.

 

My information comes from (1) how generally unhelpful EZ Air was when I inquired about changing flights - hypothetically - and (2) online chat with Princess today - you're right, I should take that with a grain of salt. They told me to call EZ Air tomorrow but also said it was a round trip and canceling one would cancel the other flight. Very discouraging.

 

I can see where United might have no idea that I've missed the Delta flight. But EZ Air would know - and I guess they could cancel the United leg?

[Globaliser]

9 minutes ago, bonnie777 said:

I can see where United might have no idea that I've missed the Delta flight. But EZ Air would know - and I guess they could cancel the United leg?

 

Yes, in theory. But I can't see any reason why EZ Air would do that; airlines have their own reasons for cancelling a true round-trip, but these don't apply to travel agents, which is what EZ Air is in this situation. So that's one of the reasons why you need to speak to them. This is pretty specialist stuff, and I reckon that only EZ Air will have the answers.

 

I say "a true round-trip", because in a market in which everything is priced using one-way fares, many of the airlines' reasons really fall away even if both halves of the travel are with the same airline and written on the same ticket. But I suspect that many airlines' systems are not sophisticated enough to distinguish. Anyway, this isn't relevant if you are holding two one-way tickets on different airlines, as you are.

[CDNPolar]

EZAir - in my opinion has some very attractive fares, and yes, the outbound and return may be on different airlines, but in general I find EZAir very difficult to deal with.

 

You must take this up with EZAir and not take any chances that not showing for one will result in the other still being open or not...

 

If you don't get a definitive answer and solution from your EZAir rep, as for a supervisor.

[CDNPolar]

Oh, and EZAir is covered under the Princess Travel Package.  They have two levels of insurance, but it does cover the air too.

 

For the medical portion to kick in, it would have to be a medically covered reason, but the CFAR is CFAR and this covers air too, BUT I don't know if you can just cancel the Air portion.  You may have to cancel the whole cruise and air.

[Zach1213]

2 hours ago, CDNPolar said:

EZAir - in my opinion has some very attractive fares

 

If "attractive" just means "cheapest", then yes, perhaps. If "attractive" means "best overall package", that's very much a case-by-case basis. There's a lot more to it than just cheapest fare. 

 

(Similar to a Noel Phillips video that just came out on YouTube where we flew Spirit and added on everything extra, and it ended up costing more than a First Class fare on United that would have included all of the stuff he had to pay for on Spirit)

[6rugrats]

No travel insurance policy I've ever had would cover you failing to take flights in order.  As already stated, no one here can answer your question but EZAir.  You need to contact them.

Edited August 6 by 6rugrats

[bonnie777]

I wanted to thank everyone for their information and suggestions and to let everyone know what happened. Basically, it became moot because my husband's health got worse and we have canceled the cruise. The good(?) news is that we should get 100% refund even with the standard protection policy. Maybe after the dust settles I will call EZ Air and find out what would have happened if I tried to cancel the first leg of the 2 flights.

[Globaliser]

I'm very sorry to hear that about your husband, and hope that he will recover soon and that you'll get to do a replacement cruise.

 

As you've cancelled the air travel completely, I suspect that even EZ Air agents may not be able to tell you what would have happened because they won't have an actual reservation and tickets to look at. Those may have provided real information for the agents from which they could have given you concrete advice, but that information probably won't be available to them after the cancellation.

 

At any rate, I'm sure we all hope that you'll never need to find out, even in the future.

[CDNPolar]

Hoping for a full and speedy recovery.