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Most airlines offer some sort of refundable tickets, but in most cases there is some kind of penalty for refunds, even if its small. Likely all major airlines offer fully-refundable tickets, but in most cases they seem not to be available with the online booking system.

For example Lufthansa, Malaysia Airlines, KLM, Singapore Airlines do offer such tickets online.

Which airlines offer tickets (doesn't matter how expensive), where there is zero penalty for refunds (up to a certain point in time before the flight), so you get exactly the same sum refunded to your credit card as you paid AND the these tickets are available to purchase online through the airline's website, without going though a travel agent or call centre?

For example Polish Airlines LOT offers "FULL FLEX" fares, where tickets are refundable without penalty up to 24 hours before the flight. Also norwegian (Flex and PremiumFlex fares) seem to be fully refundable up to 30 minutes before departure time. Any other examples?

Jetstar FlexiBiz tickets are fully refundable without penalty, but only as a voucher usable within 6 months.

Which other airlines offer such tickets online? Mostly interested in non-US airlines. And I am not asking about the US rule that any flight can be refunded 24 hours within purchase.

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  • "And I am not asking about the US rule that any flight can be refunded 24 hours within purchase." - Travelers beware! That's only half the rule. The other half is that they can instead offer to hold the fare for up to 24 hours without charge. If they choose to do that, they don't have to give you a refund even five minutes after money has changed hands.
    – Kevin
    Commented Dec 8, 2018 at 21:20
  • I think any of the incumbents will have such a fare, the fully flexible Y fare. It is not always easy to book using websites, though, as they have a strong bias towards showing only the cheapest fares.
    – jcaron
    Commented Dec 8, 2018 at 23:20
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    There are hundreds or thousands of airlines in the world. We can't possibly list all the ones that offer this kind of fare. Your question is too broad.
    – David Richerby
    Commented Dec 9, 2018 at 12:04
  • @DavidRicherby well, the ones which have such tickets available for booking online, and are non-US, are not so plentiful, and I am only interested if its a non-US airline, and tickets are available for easy online booking, so there won't be so many.
    – lowtoxin
    Commented Dec 10, 2018 at 16:10

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See for example https://thepointsguy.com/2015/08/fully-refundable-airfare/ (US centric though).

Most airlines still offer full-fare Y tickets but you may have to specifically ask for them since no one in their right mind would buy them. They tend to be extremely expensive. I just checked a BOS-HKG itinerary on United and it was $800 vs $5300 (both Economy!). The same day walk up fare for this trip would be around $1200 and you'd better off just holding off the purchase until you are sure you need to fly

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  • It's mentioned in the article, but many companies do fly Y-class via negotiated rates, which allows them to get any available seat on any flight at any time. As an extreme example, the US Government standard ticket is Y-class, and their contracted rate for BOS-HKG is only $655!
    – user71659
    Commented Dec 9, 2018 at 8:04
  • @Hilmar well, LOT Economy FULL FLEX Singapore-Warsaw one-way tickets for dates about 3 months in advance are only 1076 USD, vs 723 USD for a cheapest SEMI-FLEX one way ticket (refundable for a 146 USD penalty before departure), and 676 USD for an ECONOMY STANDARD PROMO non-refundable return ticket, so the differences don't have to be as large.
    – lowtoxin
    Commented Dec 10, 2018 at 16:21
  • @yann: Hm, I checked LOT prices for Warsaw<->SIN in March and found full flex to be about 2.5 times as expensive than regular economy (3400 vs 1400 PLN per leg). Maybe you want to add to your question "at a reasonable price" and define what you consider "reasonable" in this context
    – Hilmar
    Commented Dec 11, 2018 at 14:00
  • @Hilmar you may have checked return fares. In one way fares the difference is much smaller, with a FULL FLEX one way ticket only 50% more expensive then the cheapest one-way ticket.
    – lowtoxin
    Commented Dec 11, 2018 at 18:48

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