航空公司最不喜欢的24小时条款，却是乘客很重要的权益。2012年美国交通运输部（Transportation Department）要求各航空公司允许乘客在订位尚未付款的24小时内仍要保留订位，或是订了机票24小时内取消机票无须支付罚款。现在这项条例将扩展至一般旅行机构。如果你知道这项条款，在必要的时候可以运用之，以减少损失。
据《今日美国》报导，尽管美国政府这一强制性的条款可能造成航空公司数百万美元的花费，但这使得乘客有修正错误的机会，例如只要离起飞日超过一个星期以上，误拼姓名或输入日期错误，只需取消机票并重新订位即可。
现在监管机构想把这一条例扩展至旅行机构，要求他们也为顾客提供同样选项。绝大多数旅行机构已开始遵守24小时条例，但仍有一些不法业者游走在此条例的边缘，不清楚此条例的消费者可能会因而蒙受损失。
不法商混水摸鱼
不法的机票代理商企图混水摸鱼，以“当日”代替24小时或自行增加新的规定，使消费者难以受惠于这个条款。旅行社和航空公司偶尔会想出“创新方法”来规避法则，以便保留乘客的钱。最常见的战术就是将24小时诠释成1天，告诉消费者他们只能在预定当天更改，即使消费者是在当天晚上11点订的票也不例外。这使的保留给消费者的时间不到24小时。
有的航空公司也会有额外的限制。例如一位乘客浏览英国航空公司（British Airways）网站时发现该网站一个弹出的视窗中宣布：在订票的4小时之内，提供“免费”取消的服务。那意思是如果乘客在订票4小时过后发现错误，但仍在订票的24小时之内，英航仍将收取“一小笔费用”。
很明显的，航空公司和旅行社都希望在你按下“购买”键之后，你的机票就完全无法退款。没有人知道在2012年之前，航空公司因为“无退款”条例赚了多少钱。但似乎自交通运输部的24小时条例生效之后的几年内，一些机票代理机构可能受惠于从航空公司收取退款，随后因为保留了其内部不退款政策而没收了乘客的钱。
消费者如何保障权益？
24小时规则已广泛适用于航空公司，消费者唯有认清此条款已经开始实施，需要的时候可以使用之，才能从中获益。
如果你的旅行代理机构没有公告此条款，你可以提醒对方，这样你将可能获得退款。
在美国，如果你的旅行代理机构没有遵守此条款，你可以联系交通运输部。通过交通运输部航空消费者保护部门（Aviation Consumer Protection Division）进行投诉（dot.gov/airconsumer/file-consumer-complaint）。交通运输部发出的信件通常能确保你获得退款。
你也可以留言支持新条例。 在regulations.gov上搜索DOT-OST-2014-0056，随后按照指示留言。
If there’s one regulation that airlines hate more than anything, it’s the 24-hour rule.
Can you blame them? In 2012, the Transportation Department required air carriers to allow you to hold a reservation without payment or cancel a booking without penalty for 24 hours after your reservation, with some exceptions.
That allowed passengers to fix mistakes, such as a misspelled name or a wrong date. They could just cancel the ticket and rebook, as long as their departure date was more than a week away. But this government-mandated “out” clause probably also cost airlines millions in revenue.
Now, regulators want to expand that rule to travel agencies, requiring that they also offer the same option for customers. A vast majority of agents already abide by the 24-hour rule, but a few travel retailers have discovered ways to weasel their way out.
If history is any guide, this rule will be as tough to enforce as version one. Unscrupulous ticket sellers love to redefine “day” or add new policies of their own to make it difficult to invoke this controversial clause. The only way we’ll benefit from this proposed regulation, assuming it’s adopted, is if we remember it — and invoke it.
Consider what happened to Shannon Harrell, a nursery school teacher who lives in Como, Italy. She paid $4,600 for round-trip tickets from Milan to Seattle this summer for her and her two sons. Within a few hours, she discovered a mistake. But when she tried to cancel the itinerary, a representative for eDreams, the European online agency she’d booked her tickets through, told her she was too late. The agency’s policy was only to refund the flight if canceled the same day, not within 24 hours.
“I just can’t believe that there’s nothing I can do but lose that money,” she says.
EDreams did not respond to questions about its refund rules.
It’s not just online agencies. Another reader, Christina Conte, was fare-shopping on the British Airways website when she noticed a pop-up window that cheerfully announced it offered “free” cancellations, as long as they were made within four hours. If she caught the mistake after then, but before her 24 hours were up, British Airways would charge her a “small fee.”
The Transportation Department has kept busy enforcing its 24-hour rule for airlines. Two summers ago, it fined EgyptAir $60,000 for violating rules requiring the disclosure of, among other things, the 24-hour rule. That September, it dinged Aeroflot with the same penalty, also for a 24-hour rule violation. Last May, the department issued an advisory reminding airlines that “carriers may not deceive consumers about the 24-hour reservation requirement.”
Clearly, airlines want your tickets to be completely non-refundable from the moment you push the “buy” button. So do online travel agencies.
No one knows how much money airlines were able to pocket because of a “no refunds” rule before 2012, but it’s likely that in the years since the DOT’s 24-hour rule went into effect, some ticketing agencies may have benefited by extracting a refund from an airline, then keeping a passenger’s money because of their own internal no-refunds policy.
To keep your money, agencies and airlines occasionally come up with “creative new twists” that allow them to circumvent regulations, says Michal Ann Strahilevitz, a marketing professor at Golden Gate University. The most common tactic is to interpret 24 hours as a day, and to tell customers they have until the end of the next business day, even when they complete their reservation at 11 p.m. That would give customers less than 24 hours.
“This is not the norm, and most good online travel agencies do honor the 24-hour rule exactly as it should be honored,” she says.
Online travel agencies seem cool to the Transportation Department’s latest proposed set of consumer protections, and no matter how well-intentioned, they are unlikely to be met with their approval.
In a perfect world, requesting that your travel agent refund an airline ticket within 24 hours shouldn’t be necessary. It’s not a perfect world.
Make the 24-hour rule work for you
Invoke the rule. The 24-hour rule is widely interpreted to apply to airline reservations, regardless of where they’re made. Remind your travel agency of the rule, and you’ll likely get a refund.
Contact the DOT. File a complaint via the Transportation Department’s Aviation Consumer Protection Division: dot.gov/airconsumer/file-consumer-complaint. A letter from DOT is often enough to secure a refund, even when technically, you’re not entitled to one under the existing rule.
Leave a comment on in support of the new rule. Click on regulations.gov and search for DOT-OST-2014-0056, then follow the directions.