Basic economy is the airline industry's term for a seat with an asterisk. The seat is real. The asterisk keeps growing.
Dawn Gilbertson, who writes the Journal's “Carry On” column, has been cataloging the fine print, and the fine print has been busy. Here are the new rules of flying cheap — and what a retirement traveler should do about them.
The new fine print
Start with American Airlines (AAL). Buy a basic economy fare through a third-party website and later cancel, and you get no credit at all. Book directly with the airline, or the ticket's value simply evaporates.
American also suspends your elite status perks on these fares. Years of loyalty, benched for the length of one cheap ticket.
United Airlines (UAL) guards the overhead bin. Show up with a bag your basic fare does not cover, and the gate-check fee starts at $75. The bag flies either way. So does the fee.
JetBlue Airways (JBLU) raised its basic economy change-and-cancel fee to $150, from $100. The fee to escape the cheap ticket now costs more than the savings that recommended it.
Alaska Air Group (ALK) sells a Saver fare that earns no frequent-flier miles at all. Cancel one and the rules get medieval: at least 14 days' notice, and even then you get only a 50% credit.
And Southwest Airlines (LUV) — the carrier that built its brand on flexibility — now expires flight credits six months from booking. From booking, mind you. Not from the flight.
Individually, each rule is a paper cut. Together, they are a redesign of what a ticket is. The old deal was: pay less, get less legroom. The new deal is: pay less, and accept that your money is now flammable.
Why retirees pay most
This matters to our clients more than most, because retirement travel runs on exactly these tickets. Flexible schedules chase cheap fares. And cheap fares now punish the one thing retirees most need to change: plans.
Health happens. Grandchildren happen. The whole point of retired travel is the freedom to move the date — and the basic fare charges by the date moved.
A 68-year-old booking a spring trip in November is making a five-month bet on knees, weather, and everyone's health. Basic economy prices that bet badly.
Three house rules
First: price the flexible fare first. Not as a splurge — as the benchmark. The extra cost is often smaller than one change fee, and the change fee is the likelier bill. Buy basic only when the plans are truly fixed.
Second: if you must buy basic, book directly with the airline. The third-party discount is real until the day you cancel, at which point — at American, at least — it becomes a donation.
Third: treat travel credits like milk. They expire, sooner than you think, and sometimes from the day you bought them. Spend the oldest carton first, and check the date before you rely on it.
Keep the credits in one place — a note, a spreadsheet, the fridge door. An expired credit is not a discount. It is a prepayment to an airline for nothing.
None of this is a reason to stop flying cheap. It is a reason to stop flying cheap accidentally.