How Your Travel Costs Could Change Under a Kamala Harris Presidency
Written by
Andrew Lisa
Edited by
Zuri Anderson
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This November will bring two highly consequential events — a presidential election and the busy holiday travel season. While those two things might appear unrelated, the price you pay for vacations, business trips and family visits can change substantially depending on who’s sitting behind the Resolute Desk.
If Kamala Harris wins the presidency, she won’t have any impact on travel costs in what’s left of 2024 — but she could make significant changes in the four years that follow.
You’ll Have a Right to a Refund for Delayed or Canceled Flights
It pays for airlines to stick to schedules because time is money — but when long delays, canceled flights and luggage wild goose chases rob countless hours and days from countless millions of passengers, the airlines don’t seem to value their time quite as much.
But that all changed on April 24.
“Recently, the Biden Administration put forward a new rule that would require airlines to compensate passengers affected by flight delays,” said Joanna Teljeur, editor and senior writer for AirAdvisor.
Biden-Harris Rules Make Airlines Compensate Stranded Passengers With Cash
U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg announced that the Biden-Harris Department of Transportation (DOT) would require airlines to pay automatic cash refunds to passengers whose flights were canceled, changed or seriously delayed, or whose baggage was misrouted or otherwise significantly delayed, or who didn’t receive paid services like in-flight Wi-Fi.
Previously, airlines set their own standards regarding refunds, and refund policies varied from airline to airline. That made it impossible for most travelers to assert or even understand their refund rights.
Delays and frustration — often costing hundreds of dollars — were part of the flying experience, and when airlines did agree to refunds, they often issued them in the form of travel vouchers, credits or another form of company scrip. When they offered nothing, passengers had few avenues for recourse.
The new rules required airlines to pay cash refunds upon request, a major new business regulation like the kind President Trump has campaigned hard against.
Additionally, the Biden-Harris administration has proposed forcing airlines to compensate passengers for meals, hotel accommodations and rebooking fees, which the DOT said can cost stranded or delayed passengers hundreds of dollars per trip on top of the canceled flight.
Harris Would Adopt the European Travel Consumer Protection Model
Teljeur’s company, AirAdvisor, is a passenger consumer advocacy and flight compensation recovery organization in Europe, where a similar model has protected travelers for decades.
“These rules are similar to what the [European Union] and [United Kingdom] have been enforcing for the last 20 years, requiring airlines to compensate passengers between $275 and $660 for flights delayed by three or more hours,” she said.
The DOT gave the industry six months to comply with its April 24 announcement, which puts the deadline less than two weeks away from Election Day.
“Air passenger rights like this are long overdue in the U.S.,” said Teljeur. “If Harris is elected, these rules would go into effect.”
The Biden DOT has already helped return more than $3 billion in refunds and Harris would almost certainly expand that after the six-month compliance deadline arrives in late October.
New Regulations Could Reduce or Eliminate ‘Junk’ Travel Fees
Not only is Harris all but certain continue Biden’s policy of forcing airlines to issue cash compensation for delays and cancelations, but she’s also almost sure to keep up the current administration’s pressure on airlines to eliminate so-called junk fees.
“Under a Kamala Harris presidency, travel costs could be affected generally by focuses on cost caps and greater regulation,” said Nick Burgess, editor-in-chief of the travel site Trip Trend Setters and the former owner of the finance and politics site Making A Millennial Millionaire.
“Candidate Harris has spoken at length about government-dictated cost caps across various industries and, while airlines have not been her target, it’s not infeasible that Harris aims to cap airline fee costs,” he continued. “This has also been a plank of the Biden administration, with Transportation Secretary Buttigieg focused on bringing down fees.”
Harris has signed off on the Biden DOT’s current proposal to ban “family seating” fees of up to $200 that parents often must pay to guarantee a seat next to their children, even those age 13 and under.
Harris would also likely adopt the Biden DOT’s proposal to ban “surprise airline junk fees by requiring upfront disclosure of baggage, change, and cancellation fees, which would save Americans over half a billion dollars a year,” according to the White House.
Harris Could Tighten Rules on Credit Card and Airline Loyalty Rewards Programs
Burgess also said the current administration was targeting “various banking fees associated with popular travel credit cards,” a position that would likely extend into a Harris presidency.
Recently, Buttigieg attacked the currently legal practice of devaluing loyalty rewards points or miles after customers accumulate them according to previously agreed-upon terms. He also called for further transparency in how rewards are valued.
For example, he said an airline might charge 500 miles for a $5 in-flight sandwich, implying that one mile is worth one cent, but then charge 10 times that amount when selling miles back to customers.
Editor’s note on election coverage: GOBankingRates is nonpartisan and strives to cover all aspects of the economy objectively and present balanced reports on politically focused finance stories. You can find more coverage of this topic on GOBankingRates.com.
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