I’ve heard that the airlines are required by law to guarantee a fare for 24 hours. Is that true and is there any “fine print” to that?

Yes, it’s true, and yes, there are indeed limitations and conditions. Basically this law says that travelers must be allowed to hold a reservation and fare without payment for up to 24 hours before purchasing the ticket, and any ticket, even a non-refundable ticket, must be refunded in full if requested within 24 hours of when the reservation was made. Among the limitations are:

• Fare rules that applied at time of reservation must still apply at time of ticketing
• There can be no changes to the reservation
• The request for the guaranteed fare or refund must come within a strict 24 hours of the time the reservation was made
• Reservations made less than 7 days before departure are exempt