Buy and sell non-refundable flight tickets with SpareFare
Planning months ahead for your travels is one of the best way to get cheaper accommodation and flights. But the downside is you can never know if something comes up and ruins all your plans. From important meetings, to work schedules and last-minute problems, it’s always possible that you could say goodbye to your perfectly-planned holiday and lose all of your money.
This has happened to me, unfortunately… then what? You find yourself with a pair of airline tickets that you can’t change (unless you paid extra) plus accommodation (unless you found free cancellation). You’re very pissed: not only you can’t go on that awesome trip you planned, in addition to that, you’ve lost your money. Kind of makes you ask what you did wrong in life!
But lucky for us, something to resolve the issue has finally arrived. It’s not till weeks ago that I came to know of SpareFare.net – the newest sharing economy for travel refunds. The idea is simple. Lots of people buy their flights in advance when the prices are cheaper. However, plans often change and many travellers find themselves unable to use the flight they have bought. That’s when SpareFare comes to the rescue. It’s simply a marketplace where people buy and sell flights, airline vouchers, holidays and hotel rooms. By transferring their booked non-refundable reservations to SpareFare, sellers are able to partially or fully recover the money they paid for the trips, while buyers get a true discount of up to 50-60% by not paying the current price of the bookings. It is like having someone else pay for half of your trip!
So practically, SpareFare saves the day to both people in need of selling their tickets and people who are on the hunt for great flight and accommodation deals. The reality is that you can now buy flights and hotel rooms at a big discount from the live price offered by the travel provider at the moment! All because instead of buying the flights directly from the airline, you buy them from other travellers who cannot use their holidays.
How’s that possible?
It’s actually very straightforward. You can transfer your flight to someone else if your airline allows you to change the name associated with the flight. There is always a fee for the name change and they vary. Most low-cost airlines offer name changes as part of their official policy and you can do it easily from your airline account. The name change service is available for all of their flights and ticket options – you do not need to have purchased a special flexi ticket to use it. You can check this list of airlines which allow name changes if you have a flight to sell.
Hotel rooms are even easier to transfer. You just call the hotel and inform them that the name of the main guest under the reservation has changed. Usually, there are no fees associated with the name change, but always ask your hotel to be sure.
How does it work?
SpareFare provides fraud protection to both sides by acting as an intermediary. The site incorporates a bidding system to help secure fair ticket pricing. The site protects buyers from fraudulent sellers by keeping the buyers’ money. The seller gets paid only after the date of the reservation.
Helpful hints and tips when buying a flight or a hotel room from someone else:
- Be flexible. This is the cheapest travel and accommodation that you can ever find (since someone else will have paid half the price for you), but you have to be flexible with the dates and even the destinations. Airlines allow the dates of flights to be changed too, but you will have to pay an extra fee to do that.
- Always check that you are giving the seller the correct passport names. If you give them the wrong names, you will have to pay for the name change fee twice.
- Always check that the booking has been correctly transferred in your name.
And voilà, that’s how you save yourself lots of money, and find amazing travel deals! They’ve just started out but I’m sure we’re going to hear about SpareFare quite a lot. Who isn’t in love with the idea of a secure marketplace to sell your flight tickets, hotel reservations, holidays and airline vouchers?
Check out their website sparefare.net
