The Airlines That Allow You to Transfer Your Airline Ticket to Someone Else

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Say you’ve bought your airline ticket, you’re past the 24-hour cancellation mark, and something happens. You can’t go. Unless you’ve bought a refundable ticket or have some form of travel insurance that can help you in whatever your situation is for not being able to go, with a handful of exceptions, you may be out of luck in terms of getting a refund.

Can you sell/give/transfer your ticket to someone else? In the U.S., usually no, but there are a couple of exceptions. And even more when you’re talking about international travel.

U.S. Carriers

The big three, American, Delta, and United, don’t allow you to transfer tickets to someone else’s name. Big surprise there, right?

As per an article in USA Today from several years back, airlines don’t change names on airline tickets for 2 reasons, as per a representative from American:

1. Airline Policy – An airline needs to know who the customer is so it can “provide quality service.” Also, “Since air transportation is a service that perishes when the aircraft door is closed, it is in both the passengers’ and airline’s interest to closely match the number of passengers to seats available, from both customer service and revenue management perspective.”
2. Security – An airline wants to ensure that the person with the ticket is the same person going through the TSA checkpoint and getting screened.

Anybody else call bullspit on these?

1. “Policy” is something that can ALWAYS be changed – but airlines only do it to suit and make more profits for them, not to make things easier or more convenient for us. Not being able to transfer tickets means that you either have to pay a cancellation fee or eat the ticket. Either way, the person you want to transfer the ticket to will still have to buy their own ticket. Yeah, “revenue management” is definitely the operative word. Well, words.
2. The TSA has a whole lot of problems, but since you often don’t even have to show your boarding pass to TSA officers anymore, I’m pretty sure they have a system set up to ensure that the name on the ticket matches the name on the I.D. 😉

It’s strongly suspected that US airlines want to:

• Prevent ticket speculation
  If someone find an amazing fare that they’ll never see again, they could buy up all the tickets and re-sell them for a profit. Airlines don’t want ordinary people to make a profit on tickets. THEY want all the money.
• Keep the profits they make on last-minute bookings
  Tickets purchased within the last few days of the flight can cost beaucoup bucks. If tickets were being sold on some sort of gray market, they’d lose the higher profits they earn on those last-minute ticket sales

Anyway, a couple of US-based airlines have some form of transferring tickets to another person:

• Frontier will allow you to change the name on your ticket (not just a misspelling or because you got a name change) for a $75 fee (amazing how they can do that and the legacy airlines can’t, huh?). Of course, paying Frontier $75, an ultra low cost carrier, will probably cost more than the actual ticket.
• JetBlue’s website does mention name changes in terms of letting another person use the ticket: …However JetBlue will allow you to use the ticket for another customer provided you book a new PNR, charge the increase in fare and charge the appropriate change fees at the time of the exchange.

Outside The U.S.

If you’re traveling internationally, there are more airlines that allow you to transfer your ticket. Here are some of them:

• Aer Lingus
  They allow name changes on a ticket, for a fee (currently $157)
• AirArabia
  From their website: “You can always apply for a FREE name change if the reservation is still on hold and has not been paid for. However, once the reservation is paid, to change the name of the passenger, you will be required to pay a name change fee of AED 350.00 on Air Arabia Sharjah & Air Arabia Abu Dhabi & EGP 600 on Air Arabia Egypt, as well as any fare difference if applicable. Please note that you are required to complete this process at least 24 hours prior to the scheduled time of departure.”
• easyJet
  You can change the name on the ticket to someone else, for a fee that varies from £55 to £60, depending on if you do it online vs. on the phone.
• Ryanair
  As per their website, you can change the name on the flight up to 2 hours before your flight is scheduled to depart. The name change fee varies, depending on when you request the name change. The low-cost airline admits that in certain situations, it may be cheaper to purchase a new flight, rather than pay for a name change.
• SAS
  From SAS: “You may transfer your ticket to another person. However, you must contact us with a request for transfer of your ticket at least 24 hours before the scheduled departure time and you have to pay an administration fee for the change to be made. As many airlines do not offer you this possibility, we are only able to guarantee this service on our own flights. Please note that this applies for tickets bought for personal use only, i.e. for purposes outside trade and business. Reference made to article 3.1.2 in our Conditions of Carriage.”
• Transavia
  From their website: “A €50 change fee is charged for every name change per flight. After you change the name, the ticket will be rebooked and the ticket price may be higher. If so, you will be required to pay the difference in price between these two airline tickets.”
• Vueling
  Vueling lets you transfer your reservation to another person for free if it’s requested within 24 hours of making the reservation. After 24 hours, you’ll have to pay a fee, per person/each way. Name changes can be made up to two hours before scheduled flight departure time.
• West Jet
  Changes and transfers within 24 hours of booking are free. After 24 hours, WestJet will allow you to transfer the person on your companion ticket but it will cost a fee. This can be done up until two hours before your flight is scheduled to depart.
• Wizz Air
  Wizz Air allows you to transfer the passenger on a flight to another person’s name until three hours before the scheduled departure time. The fee for this starts at €45 per person/per way. Wizz Air also allows you to book a companion ticket and not name them until a later date.

These are 9 airlines that allow name changes, but there are others. A quick search for the name of your intended airline, along with the search terms TRANSFER NAME TICKET, should help.

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