Even as air travel became cheaper with fares being lowered and no-frills or budget airlines entering the sector, some of the privileges enjoyed earlier were withdrawn. In times past, you could prepone your travel for domestic flights and even postpone with international journeys. These are now charged and, in some cases, full cost of the fare is lost.
Cleartrip, the travel portal, has now introduced a new scheme,‘Flexifly’, under which travellers can either switch to a different flight by the same airline or book a new flight with another airline for the same sector, as per their requirements. There will be a nominal fee ranging between Rs 149 and Rs 299 only.
This offer will come quite handy for travellers on business who often feel the need to change their plans. Even holiday flyers encounter these difficulties since they make their bookings months in advance to avail the best rates and when the actual date of flying nears, they may find issues with sticking by that schedule. ‘Flexifly’ will definitely be useful to such travellers too.
The charges vary in this range due to different airlines having different tariff rules for cancellations /rebooking, changing date of travel etc. Even the sector in which you have booked your ticket first, matters.
Explaining the facility further, Cleartrip says there is a 70-day window being offered, upto 10 days before the date booked for preponing the journey and upto 60 days beyond the date on which the flight is scheduled to be taken. The change is allowed to be made upto two hours before the departure of the flight.
Cleartrip says it is opening up this Flexifly only for domestic flights, to start with.
The travel portal sees their customers gaining up to Rs 3,200 by using ‘Flexifly’ on each leg of a journey they choose to alter.