FCC and Airfare Credit - what's a guy to do.....

[KJ1231]

So originally booked Alaska in May 2020. RC canceled us and we took FCC of almost $3K for my wife and I and refunds for the kids.

We had booked airfare for 4 to Alaska which was a little over $3K and have a credit that  expires 12/31/2021.

We then booked Western Mediterranean for July 2021 for 6 of us figuring the FCC and airfare credit would be put to good use.

Airfare Philly to ROme is $1,600 on American Airlines which is not affordable at all. Since I don't know if we'll even be able to cruise  in July I told the family that the July cruise is probably out.

So I booked a Southern Caribbean for my wife and I for November 2021 figuring we'd be cruising by then and I would use the FCC that expires since it wasn't extended (yet) to summer of 2022.

Bottom line

- currently have $3K in American Airlines credit that expires 12/31/2021 and $3K in RC FCC that expires 4/30/2022.

- have 2 cruises booked - Western Med July 2021 for 6 ($1,500 in non-refundable deposits); Southern Caribbean in November for just my wife and I where I can use FCC, air is taken care of already.

Perfect storm would be to have airfare extended to 12/31/2022 and do Western Med in 2022..... barring that I need to make plans in order to not lose the $3K from American Airlines.

 

 

[CruiseGus]

I feel for you and understand.  We had a Xmas 2020 cruise booked for 7 family members in 3 cabins.  Booked it as soon as the itinerary was out (2 years in future).

For planning purposes I monitored Xmas 2019 flight costs every week from 6 months out and logger it in spread sheet.

Jan 2020 was 11 months out and Xmas 2020 flight were released, while not the lowest in my spread sheet prices were close to bottom, so i spent $6k on plane tickets.  We all know what happened end of Feb 2020.  I sat on everything until just before final payment for cruise was due, then I L&S the cruise to Xmas 2021.  But I still had $6000. in AA plane tickets,  waited and waited debating weather to cancel and take a credit voucher (would have been 7 voucher in each individuals name and some now won't be going in 2021).  Well at 2 weeks out just as I logged in contemplating canceling, I noticed the departure had changed by 1 hr 45 minutes. Research said that AA had changed the rule to had to be 4 hour difference in middle of summer for refund, but that prior to that time it had been 1 hour.

Lucky me I received a full refund to the payment of record.  New lesson learned "Buy airfare much closer to cruise departure"