Does anyone know of a travel site with refundable tickets?

Question

I want to book a flight for December, but I worry about when my passport will come (applying this week), and I don't want to lose my money if it doesn't come in time. So I am interested in getting refundable tickets if anything goes wrong.

Answer 1

when you purchase a ticket from orbitz, you have the option of purchase a protection plan for your ticket, that costs around 13-15 dollars, and it gives you full refund if you ever cancel your ticket. It's really handy.

Answer 2

Any website that sells airline tickets will sell refundable tickets if you specifically request them.  Note, though, that refundable tickets are often considerably more expensive than non-refundable tickets -- sometimes they can be double the cost or more.  

Note that the advice given regarding trip insurance in the prior answer may not be good, depending upon the insurance company.   Travel insurance typically covers events that are outside the control of the traveler, such as illness -- I'm not sure that cancellation of a trip due to not having a passport would qualify as a valid reason to get a refund using travel insurance.  (The first link below is the policy details for the insurer Orbitz uses -- cancellations due to incomplete travel documents are not listed as an allowable reason.)

All that being said, though, the turnaround time for US passports right now is about four weeks (see the second link below).  If you're applying now for a trip in December, you should receive it approximately three months before you need it.