How To Change Your Flight Date for Free (Without Paying a Fare Difference)

Key takeaways

• The easiest way to change a flight date for free is to use an airline schedule change. Airlines often rebook affected passengers on another flight with no change fee or fare difference.
• Under the US DOT refund rule, in effect since October 2024, a change is significant if your flight leaves three or more hours earlier or arrives three or more hours later on a domestic trip (six hours internationally), or switches airports, adds connections, or downgrades your cabin.
• After a cancellation or significant change, you're entitled to a full refund if you decline the new itinerary. Free rebooking isn't required by the DOT, so each airline's own schedule-change policy decides what it offers.
• To switch flights after a schedule change, find the flight you'd prefer on the same airline, call, and ask to be moved. If the first agent says no, call again. Different agents have different discretion.
• Going's Price Drop tracks your fare after you book and alerts you with steps to rebook if the price falls enough to matter.

If there’s an email subject line that makes my heart flutter, it’s this: “Your flight has been changed.”

If you’re surprised, you’re not alone. Most people would be annoyed to see that email. But not me, and if this advice is convincing, neither should you. In fact when the airline changes your flight, it’s perhaps the single best opportunity you’ll have to get a better flight—better dates, better times, better routing, or if you no longer want the flight, a refund.

And the best part? It’s free.

Here’s what you need to know.

What are your rights when an airline changes your flight?

Airline schedules sometimes change. And when they do, that presents an opportunity.

Under federal law, if an airline cancels or significantly changes your flight itinerary, you’re eligible for a full cash refund.

For many years, what constituted a “significant schedule change” varied by airline. In 2024, the Department of Transportation issued a ruling, establishing that a change is considered "significant" when departure or arrival is delayed by three hours for domestic flights and six hours for international flights. The ruling went into effect in October 2024. 

A schedule change is significant if:

• Your flight departs 3 or more hours earlier, or arrives 3 or more hours later, on a domestic itinerary
• Your flight departs 6 or more hours earlier, or arrives 6 or more hours later, on an international itinerary
• You depart from or arrive at a different airport
• Your itinerary has more connections than the original, such as a nonstop switched to a connecting flight
• You are involuntarily downgraded to a lower class of service

Changes in your departure or arrival airport, or switching you from a nonstop to a connecting flight, would also count.

Airlines would generally prefer you don’t ask for a refund, which is why they’re usually willing to re-accommodate you on a different flight (even if they don’t mention that explicitly in the email).

But you’ll have to be proactive and ask, like I did with a previous flight to Spain.

How I changed my Spain flight three times—for free

In August 2020, I booked some cheap flights from New York City to Madrid for February 2021, hoping the pandemic would be improved enough by then to allow Europe travel again.

By October 2020, it was clear that February wasn’t going to happen. So when I got an email that my flight times had been pushed back 90 minutes, I scrolled down and saw the airline would let me change my dates free of charge.

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We pushed our flights back to April 2021. Not only was there no change penalty, I didn’t even have to cover any fare difference.

By February 2021, it was clear that an April trip wasn’t going to happen. Luckily, I got an email that my new flights were changed by three hours, and I repeated the same process to push the trip back to June 2021.

In March 2021, my in-laws who we were set to travel with announced they were moving up to Boston next month. Our flights out of NYC were, all of a sudden, decidedly inconvenient. You can imagine my delight when, a few weeks ago, I got an email that our flights had been pushed back 30 minutes. I called up the airline, and minutes later, got the departure airport switched to BOS. Free.

All in all, I’ve taken advantage of three schedule changes to twice change the trip dates and once change the departure airport.

Normally, making two date changes and one airport change for four tickets would have totaled at least $1,800 in fees. But thanks to the airline’s three schedule changes, I was able to make it all happen for free.

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How to change your flight date for free after a schedule change

Even if you don’t have a specific change in mind, schedule changes are still a valuable opportunity to improve your flight. 

If you originally bought a 6am flight because it was cheapest, you could switch to a more convenient time. If you got a less expensive Saturday flight, but all things equal you’d prefer to fly on Friday, well now you’ve got a Friday flight, partner. If you had a connecting flight, see about switching to a nonstop.

And if it’s a trip you no longer want to take, schedule changes let you get a full cash refund, rather than having to pay an odious “refund fee.”

In my case, I had a flight I specifically wanted to change, so I set an internal deadline a few weeks before the trip. If I got an email about a schedule change before then, I’d use the opportunity to change my flights for free. If no schedule change came, only then would I be willing to pay a change fee.

The key to remember is that, when an airline makes a schedule change, they’ll generally ignore any fare difference and let you switch to a different flight entirely free.

When the airline notifies you about a schedule change, here’s what to do:

• Step 1: Search flights on Google Flights and find an alternate flight on the same airline that you prefer (remember to ignore the price, you’ll likely be able to switch for free)
• Step 2: Call up the airline, tell them that their schedule change won’t work for you (you don’t really need a reason), and ask to be switched to your preferred flight
• Step 3 (if necessary): Hang up, call again. Airlines have thousands of call center agents and each has discretion. Countless times I’ve been told no on the first two calls, only to be told yes on the third call.
   

All in all, schedule changes aren’t so much a pain in the butt as one of the best opportunities to lemon-to-lemonade your flights, free of charge.

A schedule change isn't the only way to come out ahead after you've booked. Fares sometimes drop after your trip is locked in, which opens up another great opportunity to save money on your existing booking.

What if your fare drops after you book?

Our research shows that many travelers are worried their fare will drop after they book, but many of them won’t check back in to confirm and reclaim the savings. That's what Going's Price Drop does for you: Add your booked flight, and Going's flight experts track the fare until departure. If it falls enough to matter, you get an alert with the steps to rebook and pocket the difference. Members save $150 per flight on average.

Your flight, seats, and departure time stay the same—you just claim the savings with the airline. 

Add a booked flight to Price Drop, and let Going help you save even more.

→ Read about how to get a refund if the airline hasn't canceled or changed your flight, or sign up for the Going newsletter for more tips like this.