USA 3000 - inflexible during crisis
 

I had a trip planned to Cancun with my wife and 2 year old son. Since the CDC and the WHO thought it was unadvisable to travel unless it was essential, I decided it would be prudent to cancel this trip due to having a young child. USA 3000 said I could change my flight, but I would have to know when I wanted to fly and I could only fly through December 15th. I could also cancel for a fee of $250 per ticket. Comparatively, my in-laws were booked on a Continental flight and they are able to re-schedule at a later time for up to one year - a reasonable policy.

How does USA 3000 know when this epidemic will be over? I was not looking for a refund, I know they are in the business to make money, all I was looking for was the flexibility to reschedule at a later time within a 1 year window. I did not read every airlines Mexico policy, but I think most airlines were following a policy similar to Continental. Live and Learn, I will never book a flight on USA 3000 again:mad:

I cannot find anything in USA 3000's Contract of Carriage with repect to ticket validity. It is entirely possible that December 15th is the latest they will book you for. Perhaps this is because of the holiday travel period? Anyway, when booking with "discount" carriers it is always wise to know what you are getting into once you purchase your ticket. USA 3000 seems to be one of the worst when it comes to flexibility on policy.

On the other side of the equation, there is the fact that this whole Swine Flu thing has been blown way out of proportion by the press. Cancun was an area not affected. You probably could have traveled without any exposure.

what... the press blow something out of proportion? I find that highly likely.

As for USA3000's policy on Mexio (http://www.usa3000.com/usa3000_airli...te_2009_v5.pdf), it appears to be very similar th many of the low cost carriers and much better than a few policies I have seen.

Continental's policy (http://www.continental.com/web/en-US...elnotices.aspx) only has the tickets valid from 1 year from the date of issue. Which means that USA3000 may actually have a later expiration date depending on when one purchased the Continetal tickets.

Lessoned learned and while I would have risked exposure for myself, I was not going to risk exposure for my 2 year old son. You are obviously not a parent.

Continental lets you re-book at a later time, on USA 3000, you must choose dates now. How do I know when it will be safe to take a 2 year old to Mexico. We can debate all day if it is safe now, the reality is I am not going to risk taking a child to Mexico while this is going on.

I read right over that phrase. Thanks for pointing it out.

With that being the case you might try to set another date and give them a call. If this thing is still just as bad 8 months from now as it is today, then even CO's one year rule isn't going to be of any more help. Also, it's probalby not going to be more than a couple months until the CDC has a good vacine for this, so you may want to consider taking that. Although I know that there were some pretty bad risks when the regular flu vacine first came out, so you have to decide what to do there as well.

Ulitmatly I don't think they are taking advantage of a situation. Again, they are giving you a little more than 7 months to change.