What Will Happen......??

1. Unless it's for a reason covered by her travel insurance, your friend won't get her money back. Travel insurance wouldn't cover a plane ticket anyway because it can be used (by paying the change fee) at another time. 2. If your friend does not check in for the flight, the seat will be available for someone else. It won't matter whether you check her in or not, the seat will still be available. Whether or not someone else gets the seat will just depend on whether the flight is full or not.

It is a reason covered by her insurance, so that is not a problem. If I am understanding correctly, if the ticket being used is for the middle seat, we could have someone sitting between us?

If you check in for her, don't you run the risk of messing up her travel insurance claim? The companies check with the airlines and they will be puzzled, at the least, if it looks like someone who is making an insurance claim tried to check in the night before the flight. Have you asked your friend whether she might object to your checking in for her? Also, misrepresenting yourself as your friend just doesn't sound good. It probably wouldn't rise to the level that anyone would do something about it, but I personally wouldn't recommend risking it. I think your options are to take a chance that no one will be placed in the middle seat, as is sometimes the case, or else change your seat assignments so you are sitting together.

We are all traveling on the same reservation, but I know you are right. We'll just have to keep our fingers crossed and hope no one sits with us.

I hope someone has read the fine print carefully. While the reason for canceling may fall within the policy, the actually refund could be different. Generally a trip insurance will only cover losses -- deposits on room, not the full cost of the room, alternate transportation if needed, only the changes fees and maybe the additional costs to rebook but if you cancel a ticket you still have the value of that ticket less the change fee. There is a can of worms that should be clearly understood. The insurance company knows that if you cancel a ticket you still have some value in that ticket. And if she doesn't cancel it they may ask, Why not? It is called mitigating damages and I will bet there is a clause in her policy requiring her to do so.

Yes, you could have someone sitting between you. If that is a concern, one of you should change your seat assignment. And I agree with Paul, checking her in might mess up her insurance claim.

Andrea, As you're all travelling on the same reservation, hopefully the airlines don't assume that ALL of you won't be using the flight. You might want to speak with a Travel Agent or the airline. Good luck!

Cynthia, that is exactly what I was thinking. I need to make sure that the two of us that are going are assigned the window and aisle seats. If someone does end up in the middle they would be crazy to not trade!!

I would leave the seat assignments as they are. If a stranger does get assigned to the unclaimed middle seat, I am sure they would be happy to trade that undesirable middle seat for either the aisle or the window seat.