I am heading to Scandinavia next July 2024,( I am book on a Tour with confirm dates now looking for flights) If I look at flights now and book,(Business Class) how likely would the schedule and/or cost of that flight change after first of 2024? (travel agent is saying I should book right away). These flight seem to all be Non Refundable :(. Will Travel insurance cover any changes If the flight doesn't work with the tour dates?
Thanks in Advance, Janet
Posted by
Green Bay
20090 posts
You never know when airlines will adjust schedules. If they change and you do not like the change, simply insist on other options.
Posted by
Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, USA
13937 posts
What airlines are you looking at that are non-refundable? Can you do the international leg on a US legacy airline that offers the chance to cancel or rebook?
Posted by
Olympia, WA, USA
6504 posts
Do you mean you'll be taking a tour whose dates you don't know yet? I doubt if you'll find a travel insurance policy that will cover change fees or other costs resulting from flights and tour dates being out of synch. Wait till you know when the tour starts and ends, then plan your trip around those dates. If you can, fly to Europe a few days before the tour starts and return a few days after it ends, so you can recover from jetlag at the beginning and do some more sightseeing at both ends.
Insurers limit their coverage to things like cancellations, trip delays, lost luggage, and medical events. You can buy expensive "cancel for any reason" coverage well in advance, but it probably won't cover the whole cost of the trip, and it will pay only if you cancel the whole trip. It's on you to plan a reasonable itinerary. The travel agent may be right about a very good fare that won't last, but if you haven't nailed down the other main elements of the trip you risk other costs that insurance won't cover I'm surprised if the agent doesn't get that.
Posted by
Chicago
756 posts
Yes, I would expect a flight booked this far in advance to change time schedule. Perhaps by 3 minutes, perhaps by 3 hours. You will be notified by the airlines and have the possible options of canceling, rebooking, doing nothing and going along with the change. Cost will also likely change - who knows what direction.
For a late June 2023 departure with a return in July 2023, I booked SAS to Copenhagen about 6 months in advance. There was a time change on the departure end, but insignificant, less than 30 minutes. My flight was canceled on the way back, but that is another story - bird strike.
Posted by
Seattle, WA, USA ☔️
6788 posts
Lots of separate questions mixed in there.
First, many (probably most) flights booked now will change to some degree between now and July 2024. Might just shift by a few minutes, might shift by a lot more, might be cancelled and replaced by another flight (which could be better or worse or a shrug) or it might not change at all, there's no way to really know.
By default, most flights that most people buy are "nonrefundable" - because most people shop with just a single criteria: the absolute lowest possible price (if you care about other things too, well, that's too bad, the market rules us all one way or another). You can almost always magically turn a non-refundable ticket into a refundable one my throwing more money at it. But fear not, you may be worrying needlessly about that.
If you book a nonrefundable flight, if that flight shifts by more than a few minutes, or changes in other meaningful ways (time, route, connection times, etc.) then you usually should have the option to either accept whatever changes the airline (actually, their computer) has suggested, or you can propose an alternative that you like better, and you just may get it (even if that preferred flight would cost more if you booked it then). Or you could just so "no thanks, that won't work for me" and get a refund. So you have lots of options.
I would not book anything for right after you arrive - your flight may just be delayed (even if there is no schedule shift) - or you may end up arriving at a different time for a bunch of other valid reasons. So I would not be overly worried about your flight having a schedule change in the coming months - it probably will, but you probably won't care or it may even be better for you.
It would help if you could share the airline and the routing, and some general details about the time between your proposed scheduled arrival and when your tour begins. Some flights may tend to be more "stable" than others. But a schedule shuffle is not something that would worry me, I expect those, and (sometimes) welcome them. It lets you negotiate for a even better flight, at no additional cost. There's no guarantee that will happen, but it often does.
Listen (carefully) to what the "travel agent" says, but I would not necessarily assume that everything they says is 100% true.