No. Booking a basic economy ticket is not an effective way to save money on your flights. The cheap upfront price is offset by the inability to save money when the price of your ticket drops after booking.

What is a basic economy ticket?

A basic economy ticket is typically the cheapest ticket available on a flight. When you book a basic economy ticket, you can’t select your seat by design. Instead, the gate agent assigns you a seat right before your flight departs. Because you can’t select your seat, you often get stuck in a middle seat.

By purchasing a basic economy ticket, you are playing the seat lottery. You might get lucky, but the odds are against you.

What if you want to:

• Sit with family/friends
• Be in an aisle or window seat
• Avoid sitting next to the bathroom?

You’re out of luck. Unless you make an additional seat purchase.

What is a seat purchase?

As a basic economy ticket holder, some airlines will allow you to purchase a seat for an additional fee. Purchasing a seat will help you avoid playing the seat lottery and allow you to pick the exact seat you want to be in.

How much does a seat purchase cost?

Seat purchase prices vary by airline, route, and supply and demand, but can range from tens to hundreds of dollars per seat.

What happens if you purchase a basic economy ticket but later need to change/cancel your flight?

If you need to change/cancel your flight, you essentially lose the money you paid for your basic economy ticket and your seat purchase (if applicable). But it depends on the airline you are flying.

Here are the basic economy ticket policies for each of the major airlines supported by Sky Key:

• Alaska Airlines:
  • If you change/cancel your basic economy ticket at least 14 days before departure, you get 50% of the ticket back as a credit. If you cancel less than 14 days before departure, you lose your money
  • What does this look like in practice?
    • You book an Alaska Airlines Saver ticket (Alaska’s version of basic economy) for a total of $1,000. Your flight departs on December 31, 2025
    • If you cancel any time before December 17, 2025, you get $500 (i.e., $1,000 x 50%) back as a future travel credit
    • If you cancel after December 17, 2025, you lose $1,000

• American Airlines:
  • If you need to change/cancel your basic economy ticket, you will pay a $99-199 fee depending on the route you are flying. Any left over amount, you get back as a flight credit
  • For example, if you book a $1,000 basic economy ticket including a seat purchase, you will get back roughly $1,000 – 199 = $801 as a flight credit

• Delta Airlines:
  • See the “American Airlines” policy above. Delta has a similar policy as American Airlines for basic economy tickets

• Southwest Airlines:
  • Historically, you couldn’t purchase basic economy tickets on Southwest Airlines. You also couldn’t select seats. Both of these policies changed on May 28, 2025
  • Customers can start buying basic economy tickets and selecting seats on July 29, 2025

• United Airlines:
  • If you need to change/cancel your basic economy ticket, you lose what you paid. In the words of Trey Parker and Matt Stone (the creators of South Park), your money “is gone”

Should you purchase a basic economy ticket?

No- you should avoid booking basic economy tickets altogether. At Sky Key, we see a lot of flights and have identified booking basic economy tickets as one of the 3 Most Common Flight Booking Mistakes we see. Booking a basic economy ticket:

• Often puts you in a middle seat
• Forces you to lose money if you need to change/cancel your flight
• Prevents you from saving money when the price of your ticket drops after booking

If you still want to book a basic economy ticket though, at least read about our $57 rule. Our $57 rule shows how you can:

1) book the nicer economy/main ticket, and

2) pay the same fare as basic economy

Yes, you read that correctly. You can get the better economy/main fare at the same price as basic economy when you average out all of your ticket purchases by simply following our $57 rule.

Does Sky Key support basic economy tickets?

You can upload a basic economy ticket to Sky Key, however Sky Key won’t automatically save you money on your basic economy ticket when the price drops after booking.

The major U.S. airlines supported by Sky Key (i.e., Alaska Airlines, American Airlines, Delta Airlines, Southwest Airlines, and United Airlines) prevent you from getting a credit/refund when the price of a basic economy ticket drops after booking. For this reason, we recommend booking any ticket other than basic economy.

For example if you book a main/economy ticket on American Airlines for $1,000 and the price drops to $700, you can save $300 (i.e., $1,000 – 700) in the form of a refund or future flight credit.

How do I save money when the price of my flight drops after booking?

As long as you didn’t book a basic economy ticket, Sky Key automatically do this for you. Simply:

1. Upload your ticket
2. Sky Key monitors prices 24/7
3. If the price of your ticket drops, Sky Key saves you money

Just by using Sky Key, I saved 13% on my Southwest Airlines flight to El Paso and $199 on my flight to Charleston, South Carolina.

The best part? If you don’t want to manually upload your ticket, you can sync your email here and Sky Key will automatically detect any tickets you book and save you money when prices drop.

– Billy Bund. Co-Founder @ Sky Key