Orbitz "win" -- Will I be sorry? YES

UPDATE Re: Orbitz "win" -- Will I be sorry? YES

I talked to a very nice lady today at NWA. She worked with all kinds of dates and places of departure (Harrisburg, PA, and BWI outside Baltimore). One of the problems was that when I go to the websites and put in NWA it also brings up Delta (since they are now owned by Delta). Delta has flights with just one connecting flight to Orlando. BUT NWA doesn't. And the voucher is only good on NWA. She actually did find a few that only had one connecting flight to get there, but they were not within the time period I have available. I guess when I hear "flexible dates" I think give or take 3 days, not give or take 3 months.

She did check NWA's rules regarding these vouchers and she says that I CAN donate them to a charity. So that is what I am going to look into doing. I appreciate the link given above, that's the first place I will check out.

Deb
 
Re: Orbitz "win" -- Will I be sorry? YES

jjerky22 said:
1)Once again my vouchers WERE transferable.....I checked with Northwest reservations before I transfered them.
2)Orbitz sent me a tax form in January of the next year for $800 even though the vouchers were good up to $1200. I sold the vouchers for more than $800.

Sorry that this doesn't sit well with you. Like I said before I was just trying to give options to pwdeb, hoping that this would help her. Really don't know what your help is?????
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Even if the sponsor allowed you to transfer them, you are now saying that you paid taxes on $800.00.

That would mean that the plane tickets came to a total of $800.00.

Yet, you sold the tickets for more than $800.00? :scratch:

So, the buyer paid you more for the vouchers than what the seats ended up costing them? :scratch:


I'm glad it worked out for you "pwdeb". Donating them slipped my mind. I remember reading someplace where people can donate their frequent flyer miles and such to our military boys and girls.
 
Re: Orbitz "win" -- Will I be sorry? YES

LIDARKSIDE said:
Even if the sponsor allowed you to transfer them, you are now saying that you paid taxes on $800.00.

That would mean that the plane tickets came to a total of $800.00.

Yet, you sold the tickets for more than $800.00? :scratch:

So, the buyer paid you more for the vouchers than what the seats ended up costing them? :scratch:


I'm glad it worked out for you "pwdeb". Donating them slipped my mind. I remember reading someplace where people can donate their frequent flyer miles and such to our military boys and girls.
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I will spell it out in the most simple terms possible.
Won vouchers with an ARV of $800.
2 vouchers arrived with each a value of up to $600. Up to $1200 total.
Sold both vouchers for more than $800 but less than $1200.
Received tax form for exactly $800.
Even after I purchased 2 airline tickets on my own for $400, I still had over $400 left to pay the taxes.

pwdeb, I'm glad NWA will let you donate. I'm sure any great non-profit organization would love to have them.
 
Re: Orbitz "win" -- Will I be sorry? YES

jjerky22 said:
I will spell it out in the most simple terms possible.
Won vouchers with an ARV of $800.
2 vouchers arrived with each a value of up to $600. Up to $1200 total.
Sold both vouchers for more than $800 but less than $1200.
Received tax form for exactly $800.
Even after I purchased 2 airline tickets on my own for $400, I still had over $400 left to pay the taxes.

pwdeb, I'm glad NWA will let you donate. I'm sure any great non-profit organization would love to have them.
Click to expand...

That makes no sense.

On vouchers, the sponsor still makes out the 1099 for the full ARV; in this case, $1,200.

You would either have to readjust it yourself on the tax return or request the sponsor resubmit the 1099 based on the actual costs of the tickets which you wouldn't have known anyway given that you sold them.

If you sold the vouchers for more than $800.00 total, then the person who bought them was planning on using them on seats costing more than what they paid for them. Otherwise, it wouldn't be worth buying them in the first place.

Therefore, your tax responsibility is not on $800.00; it's on whatever the buyer's tickets came to which, obviously, would have been more than $800.

Plus, where in the world would the sponsor pull out this $800.00 figure from?

Honestly, this is sounding crazier and crazier and makes no sense.
 
Re: Orbitz "win" -- Will I be sorry? YES

LIDARKSIDE said:
That makes no sense.

On vouchers, the sponsor still makes out the 1099 for the full ARV; in this case, $1,200.

You would either have to readjust it yourself on the tax return or request the sponsor resubmit the 1099 based on the actual costs of the tickets which you wouldn't have known anyway given that you sold them.

If you sold the vouchers for more than $800.00 total, then the person who bought them was planning on using them on seats costing more than what they paid for them. Otherwise, it wouldn't be worth buying them in the first place.

Therefore, your tax responsibility is not on $800.00; it's on whatever the buyer's tickets came to which, obviously, would have been more than $800.

Plus, where in the world would the sponsor pull out this $800.00 figure from?

Honestly, this is sounding crazier and crazier and makes no sense.
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My thinking at the time was that they took the average price of airline tickets at the time, but I may have been issued the wrong voucher. Whichever it was, the ARV in the rules was $800 and my tax form that I received was for winnings of $800. I didn't have the amount adjusted because that is what the ARV was. I know you can have your winning amount adjusted if the ARV is more than what you received. Hey it worked for me! Maybe I got lucky. Maybe it was how Orbitz ran contests back then. This was over 4 years ago. I wasn't trying to cheat the system. Just like the OP, I wanted to use the tickets the way they were intended for, but they wouldn't work with me. The OP said that her vouchers were non-transferable, mine were. But hey maybe I was soooooo lucky on this one that I jinxed myself, because I haven't won airline tickets since. LOL!!!
 
Re: Orbitz "win" -- Will I be sorry? YES

I'm still trying to figure out how vouchers with an ARV of $800, can be worth UP TO $1200?? :scratch: :scratch:
 
Re: Orbitz "win" -- Will I be sorry? YES

Many airline vouchers are for one round trip flight and they will state an approximate retail value on it based on the average flight value. As darkside said, the actual value is determined by the cost of the ticket that you exchange the voucher for. So, in reality, the ticket could be more valuable than the ARV unless the voucher has a maximum value stated on it.

Hope that makes sense.
 
Re: Orbitz "win" -- Will I be sorry? YES

In July won a trip for 2 to Las Vegas. I received an email from contest gal telling me to fill out a form and forward it to Orbitz and that they would choose the flights. That I had no choices except for the dates we wanted to go, and that Orbitz decisions were final. We live couple hours from airport and live here in snow country and since my DH is elderly, I was worried about him taking us to the airport. I noticed the name of the lady at Orbitz who handles promotions. I called her last week instead of doing the form and she was incredibly helpful. She found flights that gave us plenty of time to get to the airport without having to travel on the roads at 3:00 a.m. (lots of flights left at 5:30, etc.) She is sending us out later in the morning. She is putting us up in the Luxor which I am happy about. She sent all the info Fed Ex last Friday. All in all I couldn't believe how helpful she was. I was hesitant about even trying to make the arrangements and to my surprise it went very smoothly. I was even able to change the name of my guest since my DH didn't want to go and I am taking a friend instead. Try phoning a promotions person at Orbitz. I can't thank them enough for going out of their way for me.
 
Re: Orbitz "win" -- Will I be sorry? YES

I believe all vouchers state the maximum value of the ticket they can turn it in for; i.e. on our five Southwest vouchers with an ARV of $2,500 and each voucher said that it could be turned in for a ticket up to $500. We had travel vouchers from NWA to use on hotels and flights, and they came in two booklets with denominations on each one ranging from $100.00 to $300.00.
 
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