It's The Entry Rules That Need To Be Known
[QUOTE=Knowledge;2447292]You can buy a ticket whenever you want with no worry of losing the money. If you pay with a credit card. Travel insurance covers your money in the event you cancel. Just last week I got a full refund of my non refundable one way Avianca fare because Avianca canceled the flight, no questions asked from my credit card issuer. It was a bit of luck for me because I had forgotten I bought the ticket until Avianca e-mailed me about the cancellation.
The same terms apply in the event Avianca goes bankrupt. I don't know why anyone would pay cash unless they are in Al-Qaeda or something. If you buy a ticket and decide you don't want to take the flight for whatever reason, then the insurance premium will have some value because you would be on the hook for the fare.[/QUOTE]Interesting how AVIANCA handled your situation versus the experience my friend had with COPA who had to enlist his credit card provider as well to get his refund. I have experience flying on both of them, and always found AVIANCA customer service far superior to COPA, hence your lucky your ticket was with them versus COPA.
Regardless, I won't be buying a return ticket until the Colombian government has formally opened the Country and the entry requirements to the Country are known. I want to avoid the hassle of getting my money back for a flight in the event there is a mandated two week quarantine which nobody knows at this time. So for a guy wanting to come to Medellin this summer for a few weeks, in my opinion it wouldn't be prudent to buy a ticket now not knowing whether they are going to be quarantined for two weeks. Hopefully a negative test result will get around this by the time they open back up, but they have been pretty conservative to date how they have handled things to their credit.
Perhaps things will be wide open so buying a round trip ticket now with confidence like you that someone can easily cancel and get their money back will be a call guys will have to make, I just see some potential issues buying now for a future date when the state of things are unknown, hence I'm going to wait.