Perhaps a better analogy is investing. For instance, if I buy a stock, some precious metal, jewelry, or even art objects at a price today that drops later, I really can’t expect whoever sold me my purchase to refund me the difference.

Imagine if that one-kilogram gold ingot of gold or silver went up 25% overnight. How would I feel were the gold-silver shop owner to call me demanding more money?

Why, I’d tell him to go fly a kite, though perhaps in stronger and, um, “more colorful” terms.

Sometimes people get really greedy. Many years ago, a friend of mine bought a top-of-the-line television, and paid dearly for it — but paid gladly, as it was loaded with every imaginable state-of-the-art feature available. A week or two later — well within the store’s no-questions-asked return period (as long as the television was returned in near-pristine condition with all it’s original wrapping, packaging, and printed materials) — the same store had a one-day sale on exactly the same television, features and all, at around 40% less. My friend — we were actually roommates at the time — promptly rushed off to the shop and bought *another* television at the lower price. Then, the next day, he re-boxed the original one, too it back, and got a cash refund on the spot.

Was he technically and legally in bounds? I’m not an attorney, but I guess he was. (This was in Texas in the mid-1970′s.) I did rather icily point out that he would be exceedingly unhappy were he the store owner, but he dismissed that as “tough for the owner — I didn’t tell him to have a no-questions-asked return policy or to offer the set at a steep discount within his own return period.” That’s true, but I wasn’t comfortable with that then, not entirely, nor am I now.

Now, had the complainant in this story been told he was getting the best available deal and then it turned out he in fact could have gotten a cheaper one — well, he would have a bullet-proof complaint, in my opinion. But that isn’t what happened, so is utterly irrelevant.

Better yet and to build on your point. Not only would 3 months old shoes be used, one couldn’t return them except to the manufacturer in case of a flaw in workmanship. Even in that case, they would have to be pristine after such a long time, or it would just be assumed you wore them a lot. Furthermore, as you pointed out, you get a 30 day price guarantee. Most stores do that knowing that you could simple return the item anyway. Therefore, it is better to refund the difference than lose the sale of the whole purchase. Unfortunately, one does not have the same luxury with an airline ticket. Most tickets we tend to buy are nonrefundable due to the overwhelming cost of ones that offer such an amenity.

With all that said he deserves a voucher. One should not be stuck paying an exuberant price for a ticket that fell drastically. Sure, one can argue supply and demand. Yet, at the end of the day, people flying in the same plane should not be paying radically difference prices.

I think part of the difficulty is that two people, purchasing the identical seat, can pay radically different prices. Although it can be justified, it doesn’t seem right.