From Tom Parsons - Learn How To Get A Full Refund For Your Airfare During A Disaster
November 2, 2012
With Hurricane Sandy hitting the Northeast and Midwest, find out what you can do to get a full refund on a non-refundable ticket!
If you are stranded or are at home and your flight has been canceled, you need to learn about Force Majeure. What is it you might ask? It is a clause within the contract of carriage that each airline has in their terms and conditions. This clause is basically the act of God clause. This clause will allow you to get a full refund on your ticket if your flight has been cancelled.
We have seen the Force Majeure clause activated several times in the past few years from the volcanic ash incident in Europe, to the major earthquake in Chile, the tsumani in Japan, political unrest in Egypt and Libya, an earthquake and tsunami in Australia, to the ongoing issues in Haiti, to hurricanes in the Caribbean.
Each time something happens such as the things listed above the airlines activate this policy to help travelers, and help to make it easier for them to get a full refund or to change their flight without a penalty.
Passengers are reporting multi-hour wait times at airline call centers. We are being notified that people contacting the airlines using their social media pages such as Facebook and Twitter are getting better response times. We are also hearing of major transportation issues with their underground subways and trains being shut down in the New York, New Jersey, Baltimore, and many other cities across the East Coast..
Airports in the metropolitan New York City area are open, but air carriers are not operating. The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey said Monday that travelers shouldn't even try to go to Kennedy, Newark Liberty, LaGuardia and Stewart airports.
This storm has brought blizzard conditions to West Virginia and surrounding states. We are getting repots that so far 8 inches of snow has already fallen in some cities. Many government officials are saying that the roads are impassable and travel will be at a stand still for quite some time.
We have located each airlines force Majeure clause within their contract of carriage just in case you need to reference it to change your flight or to cancel with a full refund during this storm
Yes, they're written in "legal-ese" and yes most of them are over 30 pages long, but we believe it's truly worth your time to go through these documents and perhaps highlight the areas that most concern you.
Written by the airline's legal counsel they are, of course, slanted towards the airline. If you see something you don't understand, contact that airline and ask for clarification.
Keep a copy with you when you travel (you might be surprised how many airline employees are not familiar with these documents) and refer to them if necessary. Stay calm, be polite, but as one clothing store says in it's advertisements "an educated consumer is our best customer."

Click the link below for the rest of the article and for Tom's deals!

Posted by Ken at 6:49 PM