Travel Party of 5 | Points & Miles for Family Travel

Cancelling or Changing Award Travel in 2025

• Raya & Duane

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We dive into the complex world of changing and canceling award travel, sharing real experiences and practical strategies to help save your trip when plans change.

• Domestic carriers like American, Alaska, and Southwest generally don't charge fees for award ticket changes
• International airlines like Air France/Flying Blue, British Airways, and Singapore typically charge significant change fees
• A personal saga of spending three hours changing Air France flights reveals important distinctions between calling the airline versus the loyalty program
• Waiting for airline schedule changes can sometimes qualify you for fee-free changes or cancellations
• Premium credit cards like Chase Sapphire Reserve and Capital One Venture X offer valuable trip protection benefits
• An annual travel insurance policy (like Allianz) can provide additional protection for under $500 for a family of five
• Booking one-way flights provides more flexibility and potentially lower change fees when plans shift
• When evaluating change fees, consider whether the improved experience justifies the cost
• Clearing cookies when searching for award availability can sometimes reveal better options

If you've enjoyed our podcast, please leave a review or rating wherever you listen. It helps more people find the podcast and helps us grow to provide more fun content. Thank you!


Speaker 1:

Ever booked a dream trip with points, only to have life throw a wrench in your plans, whether it's a sick kid, a schedule change or even just a change of heart. Today we're diving into everything you need to know about changing or canceling award travel. So listen in. Hi, I'm Raya. And I'm Dwayne, and we are your hosts of the Travel Party of Five podcast, where we share how we travel as a family of five around the world.

Speaker 2:

We will also share how we use points and miles to travel as affordably as possible and sometimes even completely free.

Speaker 1:

So if you're wanting to travel more with your family but you're not sure how, we'd love for you to listen in.

Speaker 2:

So welcome to our podcast, where we hope you learn a thing or two to get you closer to your next trip. Welcome back, hi friends.

Speaker 1:

Thanks for tuning in Welcome back to Travel Party of Five podcast. I feel like we need a sprucier intro here. We always just say like hi, welcome back, and then we get right into it. I don't know, maybe people like that, but I feel, like other podcasts that I listen to, they have like a lengthy intro where they introduce like themselves and where they can. You can find them and I don't know, like on social media.

Speaker 2:

We already have that intro. It plays before we.

Speaker 1:

Well, no, no, I know that, but I'm saying like they say it every time. Anyways, whatever, if you want to find us on Instagram, we're at travel party five, so I guess we'll throw that in there. Before we jump into, kind of our main topic today, I thought we would give a few like trip updates on trips that were kind of in the midst of planning for next year, and these are all. These trips are kind of in various stages of the planning process, and so let's start with Thailand, which is going to be our spring break 2026 trip. We pivoted from Belize, which, if you've been listening for a long time, our plan for almost a year was Belize, and within like a week, I totally flipped that and decided no, we're going to go to Southeast Asia and go halfway across the world.

Speaker 2:

But believe me, I'm not upset with Thailand.

Speaker 1:

Oh, my God, oh, that was for sure a dad joke. Oh gosh, ok, so do you know where we're at with our Thailand trip?

Speaker 2:

Yes, we've booked a ticket there. We haven't booked one back, correct?

Speaker 1:

Yes, and we have hotels booked for now.

Speaker 2:

Yes, that's always first.

Speaker 1:

Yes.

Speaker 1:

So we booked flights there, paying cash actually, because the cash price was like pretty affordable, and then I booked all of our hotels and I'm just in the process of trying to find flights back.

Speaker 1:

I do think I know how we're going to book them, but because there was a good amount of availability on the airline, like slash points program that I think we're going to use, I am kind of holding out for maybe a hopeful transfer bonus to this program.

Speaker 1:

There hasn't been one in a while and I tried putting the history of the transfer bonuses, like you know, for the last like five years or whatever, into chat GPT and I asked chat GPT to predict when the next one would be and it could not because it was so like irregular. So no idea, but I'm pretty sure it's been more than a year since there has been a transfer bonus to this specific airline program from American Express specifically, and so I'm just gonna, I don't know, give it a week or two, maybe wait till June and see if anything pops up. And if it doesn't, so I'm just gonna, I don't know, give it a week or two, maybe wait till June and see if anything pops up, and if it doesn't, then I'm probably just gonna book it without the bonus, but since there was a lot of availability, I don't feel like we have to rush.

Speaker 2:

Explain to our listeners a transfer. What's it called?

Speaker 1:

A transfer bonus.

Speaker 2:

A transfer bonus.

Speaker 1:

Explain to our listeners or explain to you.

Speaker 2:

I'm listening right now.

Speaker 1:

Okay. So a transfer bonus is like when, let's just say, chase has a. Currently they have a transfer bonus to Air France Flying Blue and this we'll actually talk more about this in a few minutes because I have a story about some of our flights. I just changed, but currently they have a 25% transfer bonus. So that means if you transfer 100,000 chase points, you should end up with 125,000 flying blue points. Essentially and there are, like you know, that number is for easy math but if you need like 52,000 points, there are transfer bonus calculators. You can just google and you can enter, like the program, the transfer bonus, and then it'll, like you'll say, I'm trying to get, like, let's say, 52 000 points and it will tell you how many you should transfer to reach that 52 000. So it does the math for you. But that's what a transfer bonus is. So essentially it just allows you to utilize less of your flexible points to book um what are some of the apps or programs for that?

Speaker 1:

like what do you mean?

Speaker 2:

you just said you can put it into this program.

Speaker 1:

You know, like you can just google transfer bonus calculator and there's there's a ton just whatever, or the first few that pop up. I would choose that. I feel like most of the like the Points Guy and Travel Mom Squad they all have like ones on their website that you can use. So I just use whatever comes up first. Anyways, so that's kind of where Thailand is at.

Speaker 1:

And then we're thinking for summer Scotland, because my mom really wants to go, and so this would be kind of the five of us, and then my mom and my sister would also go, and so we've kind of narrowed down rough dates for that, literally this morning, and I'm trying to understand they each have a little bit of points and I'm trying to understand what points they have and how many, so that I can try to coordinate all of that into.

Speaker 1:

You know, either one of the flights, like one way or round trip, depending on what I can find and how many they have. So that's like a whole nother element, right, Because it's it's not just the five of us. Now there's seven. My mom will likely fly with us because she lives here, but my sister lives in Florida, and so I'll have to find different flights for her that can kind of coincide with whenever we are landing, and I think we're going to try to do a few days in London before we head to Scotland. That seems to be the gist, and so it's probably going to be a two-week trip because we want to go to like four different places in Scotland.

Speaker 2:

Does anywhere in Florida fly directly?

Speaker 1:

Probably not right. Orlando does, yeah, and so my sister lives in the panhandle, but she'll. I asked her where she wanted to fly out of and she said probably Orlando, and I do agree that's probably the cheapest. So she will either drive or fly. No, she'll, she'll drive to Orlando, she. We, we all used to live in Orlando, so we have a good amount of friends and stuff there, so I think that'll be the plan.

Speaker 2:

So that should be fairly easy for her.

Speaker 1:

Yes, yes, it should be easy for me to help find her award availability. I'm thinking Virgin Atlantic is probably going to be like the cheapest and the plan is two one-way flights, one into London and one out of Scotland. That's kind of where we're at with with various trips, and then, as far as like our fall break trip next year, no idea, absolutely no idea. Um, peru is really high on my list, but after doing Thailand and then Scotland, like those are both going to be not really like super relaxing. So I'm debating, like I don't know if Peru is the best choice or if we just need to go back to like Maui and park on a beach somewhere.

Speaker 2:

I'm all for that. Maui the Maui one Any beach oh yeah, Nice beach. That maui the maui one any beach oh yeah, nice beach, like as a funny story, duane.

Speaker 1:

So I really wanted to go to peru and I was telling duane about this and he was incredibly uninterested in peru. And I mean we're talking like machu picchu. Like this is like really high on my bucket list.

Speaker 2:

I mean I'm interested in that well, okay, so I mean, I would definitely want to see that yeah.

Speaker 1:

So within a week of me mentioning this to him, one of my one of my good, good, good friends posts on facebook that she is in peru and I send it to him and I'm like, oh my gosh, look, this is a sign. So then I text her and I tell her like, oh my God, you're in Peru. Like I want to go there. I was just talking to Dwayne about this. He doesn't want to go, blah, blah, blah. So then she starts sending us pictures right Of where she's seeing like my name on stuff both my first name and then our last name and she just keeps sending these pictures and she's like, how many more signs do you need? And it was pretty funny. It was pretty funny, yeah. So I mean our last name's not super common. So I mean it's your last name, but now it's our last name it's not super common. So it was pretty funny to see. So they also have really good food in peru, like some of the best food in the world.

Speaker 2:

I'm all about that too. I mean, I just there's other places on my list that are before Peru. That's all I'm saying.

Speaker 1:

Yeah. So anyways, I don't know that Peru is the right answer for our fall break trip next year again, but likely in the next few years. We will do that because I've never been to South America. So that'll be, that'll be fun. Okay, so I'm going to tell you the whole reason why we decided to do this episode. First I'm going to tell you my story, my saga around the change I just made to our Air France flights, and then we'll jump into kind of some best practices about best airlines that don't charge change fees and kind of how to think through if you do need to change or cancel an award ticket or hotel.

Speaker 1:

So the other day I am doing my regular searches for flights to Thailand, just looking to see if anything new has come available. I check pretty much every day and I probably will. Until I book something, I don't find anything new or exciting, and so then I just get a random thought that I should check our flights back from Frankfurt later this year when we go to Christmas markets. I haven't looked at these flights in months. I think I booked them in January and I we have business class booked on the way there and we have economy booked on the way back. We fly from Frankfurt, we connect in Paris and then direct Paris to Phoenix. So I go on the website and I realize that there are five business class flights available at the Saver Fair. So basically I can get five seats for 255,000 flying blue miles. That is a smoking deal. That is for three I'm sorry, two adults and three kids as a side note and so I'm like, oh man, like I would really love to do this, but is it worth it? So I called Dwayne, thinking he's going to be the voice of reason, and I say, hey, should I do this? Because if I do, I need to use half of our chase points. Right, we have around 200,000 and this is going to use up 100,000 of them. And is it worth it? It's also going to be an extra $1,500 in taxes and fees, because there's additional taxes and fees regularly and then there's also a change fee that Air France charges. So total was an extra $1,500 out of pocket, and we had already paid around $1,500 out of pocket and we had already paid around a thousand.

Speaker 1:

Dwayne is not the voice of reason, was not at this time. He said, nope, we should do that. So I'm going to walk you through my saga because it was three of the most stressful hours of my life. So there's a chase transfer bonus. So I think, okay, that's good. I think I only had to transfer 95,000 points and I was able to get the like 115,000 ish that I needed. But first I also have to cancel our current flights because I need those points back in order to be able to book the new flights.

Speaker 1:

And when you book with Flying Blue, you have to. Well, it depends on the fare ticket, I guess, but the tickets that we had booked, you have to call them to change or cancel. Like there's a form you can submit online, but it doesn't happen right away, it's not immediate. So the only way to do it immediately is to call them. So I do, I call them and I'm on hold for 10 minutes, 20 minutes, 30 minutes, okay, and now I'm panicking because I've already transferred the points. The points are in my account, but I need the extra points from the current flights to book anything. I can't book anything and I'm afraid the flights are going to disappear.

Speaker 1:

So, as I'm on hold, I'm panic, googling like how to get a hold of Flying Blue, blah, blah, blah. I try chatting on the website. I need to let you all know right now there is a difference between Air France and Flying Blue. So when you call Air France about an award ticket, they cannot help you. They will direct you to Flying Blue, which is the loyalty program. So, just as a side note, I chatted on their website but it was Air France.

Speaker 1:

I could not find a chat bot on the Flying Blue website. I was searching Reddit threads like the threads were recommending to call, like the Australia number or the Dutch number. Okay, I tried the Australia number. It was they were closed because of what time it was in Australia. It was like 2am. So okay, so then I eventually I probably tried six different numbers and one of them I googled. I found this number in a forum and like I think it was on flyer talk and they answered right away. But I just had bad vibes, because there are like a lot of scammers that try to spoof flying blue and other airline programs to get you to like give them your credit card information and whatever. And I just had a bad vibe and so I said you know what it looks like. The flight I want actually isn't available anymore, so I am going to just hang up. So I hung up.

Speaker 1:

Then I found the French version of the Flying Blue website and I called the number listed on the bottom like country code for France and everything Plus. I think it was three, three, blah, blah, blah, whatever. Someone answered relatively quickly, like within a few minutes. I did have to ask in French if they spoke English. They did, and then they were able to help me. But I mean this. This probably went on for three hours before anything Like between the time I decided I was going to change them and the time I was actually able to make the booking.

Speaker 1:

So I think in the future what I would do if I were you and this is happening is I would wait to transfer the points until someone picks up the phone first of all, and if you're having trouble getting someone to pick up the phone, I would try calling the international number, like for you know, the French number or whatever the French number is what happened to work for me, depending on the time it is when you're calling Australia or whatever may work for you and then just hope that your points transfer is instantaneous. I guess is the other piece, because it isn't always. I had one that took almost 48 hours once, so it's quite the process, like at one point Dwayne was like wait, you still are on hold. I was like yes, like nothing has happened yet. Um, so, anyways, they do charge you the change fee up front. So you pay the change fee and then the points get refunded back immediately. And then I they could have booked it for me over the phone, but I would have had to also pay a booking fee per ticket and I was like no, no, like I can book it online, just fine, I just need the points there and it's fine.

Speaker 1:

So once I had paid the change fee and they had canceled my original flight, I was able to go online and book the tickets. Fortunately they were still available. I will say, a couple times, when I was would do the search again, it would show me a higher price. It would say like 300 and some 1000 points or miles. So then I would have to go and clear my cookies and then I would do the search again and it would again show up at the $2.55. So if you're searching and you're like wait, the flight is gone, clear your history and try again before you give up. So that was my saga. So I was able to finally book it. It was very exciting. I paid the higher taxes and fees. I should be getting a refund of the original taxes and fees that we booked, so I just need to keep an eye out for that.

Speaker 2:

I'm expecting that to take at least three to four business days, so I'm sure you looked, but did you see if there were premium economy seats available on our flight there to save us a little bit of money, or points or?

Speaker 1:

I did not look, either. I did not look, no, no, I didn't even think about the flight there because it's already in business class.

Speaker 2:

so yeah, so, yes, we're gonna fly business class there and back, which I've never even flown business class before, so I'm excited it's gonna be.

Speaker 1:

I think it's gonna be really good. Um, I'm super excited for that, especially because here let me tell you a few ways that I use to justify it, and if you follow me on Instagram, I've already shared this, this piece. But number one Flying Blue offers 25% off. Award fair Actually I think it's any fair for kids 11 and under, and our oldest is going to turn 12 at the end of December this year. So, like this is my last.

Speaker 1:

This is the cheapest we'll ever be able to fly business class on Air France, because, like, in like six months, we'll have to pay the adult fare for him. So I was like, okay, one already saving points, right, this is girl math. I was like, two, there's a transfer bonus, so I'm saving another like 25,000 points, almost, okay, amazing, this is like what a steal, right. And then I'm like we are going to fly to and from Japan in economy and like that's a long flight and it like it will have been, by the time we go on this Christmas market trip, a long year of travel, and I don't say that in a poor us like oh, no sort of way, but I just think it will be really nice to not have to stress about the flights, because I do kind of dread them. You know, like I don't enjoy flying economy, I'm just doing it because I want to take more trips.

Speaker 2:

You know, yeah, I mean I agree, don't enjoy flying economy, I'm just doing it because I want to take more trips. You know, yeah, I mean I agree, I I just, since we flew premium economy, that's the way I want to go from now on.

Speaker 1:

I mean, it was just that much nicer than economy and it wasn't you know as nice as business class, but still oh, especially, I think, especially for a daytime flight where you're awake the whole time, like it's. It's nice because you're, I feel like you're just more aware, right, when you're sleeping for a few hours, I don't know, I feel like it goes by a little quicker. Okay, so that was my, that was my whole saga, right, let's talk about some airlines that do versus do not charge change fees and some best practices to think through if you do need to change or cancel an upcoming flight. So I think, as a general rule, most domestic carriers do not charge change fees on points tickets, whereas most international ones do. That's not a like a cat, like. That's not a catch all statement. I don't know what the phrase is, but let me explain. So I think, if you think of it in broad terms, that's like a good kind of distinction, right? So you can think like, oh, I booked on American Airlines, like there's probably no change fees. There's not right.

Speaker 1:

If you book on points, you just cancel your ticket. You can get your points back and your taxes refunded. So American, united, delta, alaska, southwest, jetblue, all of those kind of domestic carriers for the most part, when you book on points, you can get your points and taxes refunded. There's a couple of like caveats like United, I think, if it's less than 30 days before your trip, they do charge a fee. And Delta, if you're booking with SkyMiles, I think if you're booking a basic economy ticket, they also may charge a fee. Same thing with JetBlue, but for the rest like specifically like Alaska, southwest and American, there should be no change fees when you're canceling award tickets. So if you're thinking like backup flights or whatever, I would focus on those airlines versus the other. Um, southwest has made some changes recently to cash fares, but points bookings are still fully refundable, so well, it looks like they refund you what your taxes are.

Speaker 2:

Then a credit oh, as you the money they just give you a credit.

Speaker 1:

I don't know. I do. I know it. I don't know if that's totally true. That's, let me look. I just did a quick Google and I believe you can either choose to have the taxes refunded to your card or as a flight credit. You should 100% choose to get refunded to your card because the Southwest flight credits are going to have an expiration date starting soon, so that'd be my recommendation for that. And then a lot of the international airlines. So, like Air France, you know, which is flying blue, british Airways, singapore, qantas, cathay Pacific, turkish they all have change fees.

Speaker 1:

So a couple ways to think through this. If you need, if you know you need to change or cancel. I think number one if you have looked a long ways out and there's still a long ways to go before your flight happens, hold off on canceling and wait and see if the airline does some sort of a change to the itinerary. Because even if they change it, like five minutes, you generally can use that as a reason to get your money back without paying any of the cancellation fees or your points back. I would do that if it's sooner in and like. You're like oh, I'm flying next week, right, like, and I need to cancel this. That's when I would think about either your the credit card that you booked with and does it have, like cancer, trip cancellation and interruption insurance, and or do you have a travel insurance policy that potentially might cover this?

Speaker 1:

So so some cards that we really like that offer trip protections are the Chase Sapphire Preferred that is how or the Chase Sapphire Reserve. The reserve is actually what we use to book all of our travel. So even when we book on points, we pay the taxes and fees with our my Chase Sapphire Reserve card every time. My Chase Sapphire Reserve card every time, because the trip cancellation and interruption insurance that comes with that card is fantastic. The Capital One Venture X card and the American Express Platinum card are a couple of other ones that offer trip insurance as well.

Speaker 1:

And then, as far as like separate travel insurance, we pay for an annual policy through Allianz. We had a really good experience when we had to use them in Costa Rica last year, and so this year I decided we have you know, we have three international trips, so I just bought the policy to cover all five of us for the full year. It was under $500 total, and I'm going to do it again next year. Fortunately knock on wood we haven't had to use it this year, but they were very easy to work with when we had to use them for our Costa Rica trip.

Speaker 2:

So yeah, very helpful and easy.

Speaker 1:

I will say I think the trip cancellation coverage using that policy is only around $2,000, which is not a ton, although for us booking on points it's it's not terrible. Um, so I but, but I would probably start with the credit card and then that would be like my second, my secondary um route, or I don't know, maybe the Allianz is the primary and then the credit card. I don't really know the requirements or how that part works, but I like knowing that I have both options, you know. Okay, what else did I want to talk about?

Speaker 1:

Obviously, if you're planning to utilize the trip cancellation insurance, either through your credit card or through a separate insurance policy, you need to review what is like, like what is covered as far as reasons for cancellation. If you, you know, if someone is sick and you need a doctor's note, make sure you get that, make sure you ask the doctor to specify that you're not able to travel. Just just make sure you have all your, all your ducks in a row. You know if you're canceling for one of those reasons. And then the other thing I think is one of the reasons we like to book one-way flights. Number one it gives us flexibility, because we can fly into one city and out of another and, kind of, you know, make our way from one to the other as part of the trip. But the other reason is, if we need to cancel one but not the other, we have a lot more flexibility that way too.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it's the way to go and I mean especially when there's five of us right Like a change fee. The change fee was 350 euros for that flight that I changed because there were five tickets. Like that's a hefty amount and, as a side note, I did ask the Air France person if they would waive it, since I was going to be booking and spending more money with them, and they laughed and said no. So but I mean I figured it was worth a shot. When I had to change a flight last year with flying blue and I don't think I got charged the fee, it was never mentioned to me and I didn't bring it up and so I think I just got lucky.

Speaker 1:

But I would expect to pay Um, if you're you know, if you're making a change like that, and then I just think you just have to evaluate is the total cost I'm going to pay worth it? I try to envision myself in the moment sitting in an economy seat right for like 11 hours and I'm like would I have paid 350 euros in this moment to move to business class? The answer is yes, I would have, and so that's kind of my determining factor.

Speaker 2:

Of course, of course it is.

Speaker 1:

Do you, do you like? What was it about it that made you say like, yes, we should do that?

Speaker 2:

I mean, I just wanted to. You know, I've never flown. I totally forgot we were flying business class there. Oh so if I would have remembered that, I probably would have leaned towards the other way. But no, oh my gosh. I mean, like I said, premium economy is how I want to fly from now on. I mean, oh okay, okay, bougie, I mean if that's just, if that means just us and the kids are in the back, I'm completely fine with that well, okay.

Speaker 1:

Well, what's funny is you know what I forgot. You said this, but when I called duane to say should I do this, he was like, can we just do it for us and leave the kids an economy? Um? And I said yeah, someday, but not now. Like our daughter is going to be six years old, like she cannot be by herself no, kids fly by themselves all the time, they'll be fine no, like when she's like 12 maybe and we're on an airplane like she's not going far no, no, I don't.

Speaker 1:

I don't even think it would be like allowed. I feel like the airline would be like no, because you have to book them separately, and then they'd have to be booked as unaccompanied minors, and I feel like there's a fee that goes associated with that. I don't know, we're not doing that. They have to be older, like when she's 12 and her brothers are 15 and 18, and they can all fit in one row together, one row of three, like, yeah, 100%, I would be fine with that, but until then, no, she gets to live the bougie life. You know, what I was thinking, too, is, as she gets older, she's, she's the youngest, so the other two are going to be out of the house and she's still going to be here, and it's going to be much easier for us to fly business class with just three of us, you know. So she's going to get the better end of that deal.

Speaker 2:

Sure, if we're going anywhere, the boys will be there too.

Speaker 1:

I mean I hope so. I will pay for my kids to go on vacation as long as they want to accompany me. You know I don't care if they're 35. Anyways, Okay, I hope that this was helpful, kind of thinking through changing and or canceling tickets. If you guys have questions, please find me on Instagram at travel party. Five DM me. I answer every DM that comes our way and I was gonna say oh yes, if you have ever gotten any value out of our podcast, we are just literally desperately begging you to leave a review or a rating wherever you listen, literally desperately begging you to leave a review or a rating wherever you listen. It helps more people find the podcast and it helps us grow and be able to provide you with more fun content. So thank you so much for listening. Hope you all have a great week.

Speaker 2:

Yes, thank you so much.

Speaker 1:

Message me on Instagram if I can help you in any way.

Speaker 2:

Have a good one.

Speaker 1:

Talk to you later. Bye.