Purchase travel insurance before or while booking your ticket for travel. Flight insurance can cover up to 100 percent of the cost of your original ticket should you need to cancel or rebook your flight. Several airlines offer travel insurance as part of their services, or you can buy travel insurance independently of the airline. Many travel insurance companies require that you illustrate how your plans have changed by providing them with receipts, affidavits or doctors' notes proving your inability to travel on the date originally chosen.
Call the airline or travel service through which you have booked your flight and ask them if you can fly stand-by on the new date of travel. While some airlines may require that you cancel your existing ticket and purchase a new ticket for the earlier date, others may allow you to keep the original ticket. By flying stand-by, you are not guaranteed a place on the plane and are only admitted onto the flight if there is room. Therefore, if you bought a first class ticket but the only available seat is in coach, you may have to settle for a coach-class seat.
Cancel your flight reservation. Call the airline with whom your flight is arranged and explain the situation. You may be able to cancel your reservation and credit the amount of your original ticket toward a flight on a different day. You may have to pay a change fee, which can be $150 or more, and the difference between the amount of the original ticket and the new ticket.
