IndiGo has notified a whole set of new charges last evening, valid as of today, June 28 onwards. Essentially, the move is towards revising the flight cancellation and change charges for both domestic and international flights, “to streamline the cancellation process which will further improve travel experience”, as per a statement issued by the airline.
The revised charges apply to flight changes or cancellations that a passenger makes within 3 days of the journey. For changes made more than 3 days out, the charges remain the same as earlier, which was INR 3,000 for cancellations and INR 2,500 for changes on a domestic ticket, for instance.
Here is the new chart of applicable charges
What’s interesting in this case is the understanding that you have to make, about number of days and how it is counted. Let us say, you have a ticket for travel on July 10 at 23:55 scheduled departure booked on June 28 at 3:00 PM. Now, to change or cancel this ticket for free, you can do that till June 29 at 2:59 PM.
But, if you want to change or cancel this ticket after, the definition of calendar days comes into effect. So you could be travelling at 00:05 hours on July 10 or 23:55 hours on July 10, it is all the same and defined as Day Zero by the airline. So, if you cancel/modify anytime between July 7-9 for the new charges, and anytime before that on the old charges. Just make sure to get on the phone or on the internet in time to get the right timestamp.
Alongside, IndiGo also changed their policy to come in line with the new DGCA charter on ticket changes and cancellations. For IndiGo’s domestic flights, customers can make a change or cancellation free of charge within 24 hours of booking, when booked at least 7 days before the day of travel.
This second move brings them in line with Vistara, which has offered this for the longest time, and also Air India, which aligned itself to the policy just a couple of months ago.
Bottomline
IndiGo has, 4 years ago, also tried to move to a time-dependent cancellation format, so I wouldn’t say it is actually very surprising that they made this move again. But, from 2015 through now, the scale of IndiGo is vastly different as compared to then. Also, then, they wanted you to commit to the ticket 7 days in advance, now they only want you to commit to the ticket at least 3 days in advance. Also, the new charges are modestly higher than the charges for the other days, although we don’t like paying these fees in the first place anyways. Just be careful as to the definition of three days, and you are alright.
What do you make out of the changes to the fees for IndiGo customers?
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