Cancelling 'non-refundable' flights for free within 24 hours of booking

larochelleuk

Hi,

I booked a flight last week only to realise the next morning that we needed to change the dates - but the flight was non-refundable

BUT there is a voluntary agreement many (most?) European airlines have signed up to which means you can cancel any flight within 24 hours for a full refund irrespective of the ticketing conditions about refunding.

You will need to talk directly to the airline or its customer service department rather than with an agency, if you booked through an agency. However, even if you booked through an agency, you ARE still entitled to the refund as it was the airline that signed up to the agreement. You may just need to persuade the airline of that.

The commitment was an EU initiative called the Voluntary Airline Passenger Service Commitment. Trying to enforce it last week meant lots of back-and-forth between the agency and the airline, and speaking to rude people at the airline who didn't believe it and had never heard of it. I got successful eventually by asking the customer services woman if she could, at least, tell me if the airline had signed up to the Commitment. The airline headquarters called back 20 minutes later saying it would be refunded, no problem...

If you do plan on using this, I recommend you search 'Voluntary Airline Passenger Service Commitment' and the name of the airline on google before calling them. It was helpful to be able to tell them on which bit of their own website they could find details of the policy Also, as it's a voluntary commitment, I am not sure whether all airlines have signed up to the same one, or whether the precise commitments vary between them.

R

richardw

Did a google to see if British Airways had signed up. Nothing concrete. Really need to find out as I cancelled a flight on the day of travel and may have a claim.

markmat

It does seem to be rather difficult to find a list of the airlines who are signed up. However, I've found this which says:

"Ten UK airlines have signed up to the Airline Passenger Service Commitment. They are Air 2000; Airtours International (now MyTravel Airways); bmi British Midland; Britannia Airways; British Airways; British European Airways; JMC Airlines; KLM(UK); Monarch Airlines; Virgin Atlantic Airways. "

So BA are certainly listed, but I can't find any reference to it on their website.

I think this is the wording of the 'commitment', and this IATA document relates to it.

markmat

richardw wrote:

Really need to find out as I cancelled a flight on the day of travel and may have a claim.

I think this commitment is to do with cancellations within 24 hours of booking, not within 24 hours of the actual flight.

richardw

The important bit is in Section 6 on page 50 of the IATA document, the cancellation is without penalty within 24 hours of booking. This could be useful if mis-spelt names are given in error.