This Is the No. 1 Secret to Cheap Travel That Your Travel Agent Won’t Tell You

6. Your ticket is not nonrefundable

Your travel agent doesn’t want you to know you can get a refund. | Joe Raedle/Getty Images

Did you know that essentially no airfares are nonrefundable? Probably not. And your travel agent won’t tell you that, either.

“Whilst most airlines will charge a small fee for making changes, there is not one airfare out at the moment that is non-refundable,” a travel agent told Travel Weekly. “We will normally tell you the ticket is nonrefundable when we sense there is the slightest chance you may cancel, especially if it’s a big booking — we need to protect our commission and it’s like a form of punishment for canceling your trip.”

“I made close to $3000 commission recently on a romantic trip for two to Tahiti, (after) they canceled due to family problems. We charged them $3,500 in cancellation fees — what they didn’t know was the actual cancellation fees were just $365 for the two airfares and the hotels were cancelled free of charge.”

Next: Get a discount