Refund & cancellation

1. The short version

Refunds follow the fare rules of the airline operating your flight. We cannot refund what the airline will not refund. Some fares are fully refundable, many are refundable only in part, and the cheapest promotional fares are frequently not refundable at all beyond the government taxes.

We will tell you which category your fare falls into before you book, and again if you ask us to cancel.

2. What determines whether you get money back

Three things, in this order:

• The fare rules on your ticket. These are set by the airline when the fare is filed and they are not negotiable by us. They dictate whether a refund is possible, whether a cancellation fee applies, and whether any remaining value must be taken as a credit rather than cash.
• Who is cancelling. If you cancel, the fare rules apply. If the airline cancels the flight, you generally have the right to a full refund or a rebooking regardless of the fare type, under UK air passenger rights rules.
• When you cancel. Some fares carry lower penalties further out from departure. Once a flight has departed with you not on it — a "no-show" — most fares lose all remaining value.

3. Taxes and charges

Even where a fare itself is non-refundable, certain government taxes and airport charges are usually refundable because they are only levied on passengers who actually fly. Air Passenger Duty is the main one for departures from the UK. The refundable amount is often modest, and some airlines apply an administration fee to process it that can exceed the refund itself on cheap tickets. We will tell you the net figure before you decide whether it is worth pursuing.

4. Our service fee

Our service fee covers the work of researching, arranging and issuing your booking. That work has been done by the time a ticket exists, so our service fee is non-refundable once a ticket has been issued, even where the airline refunds the fare in full.

If we have quoted you but nothing has been booked and no ticket issued, there is nothing to refund — you have not paid us anything at that stage.

Where you ask us to process a cancellation or refund claim, an administration fee may apply for handling it. We will tell you the amount before we start.

5. The 24-hour rule

Some airlines, particularly on routes touching the United States, allow a booking to be cancelled without penalty within 24 hours of it being made, provided the departure is at least seven days away. This is a US Department of Transportation requirement rather than a UK one, and it does not apply to every airline or every route.

If it applies to your booking we will tell you at the time. If you think you may need to cancel, tell us within that window rather than after it — we cannot recover the position afterwards.

6. How to request a refund or cancellation

Contact us as early as you can:

• Call 020 0000 0000 — fastest, and the right option if you are travelling soon.
• Email info@british.manageflights.co.uk with your booking reference and the passenger surname.

Tell us your booking reference, which passengers and which flights are affected, and whether you want to cancel outright or look at changing the dates instead. Changing is often cheaper than cancelling and rebooking, so it is worth asking.

Please do not simply not turn up. A no-show almost always destroys any remaining value in the ticket, including value you would have kept had you cancelled in advance.

7. How long a refund takes

Once we submit a refund request to the airline, typical timescales are:

• Airline processing — commonly 7 to 21 working days, though some airlines take considerably longer, particularly for tickets issued through a consolidator or involving more than one carrier.
• Reaching your account — a further 3 to 10 working days after the airline releases the funds, depending on your bank or card issuer.

These are indicative, not guaranteed. The airline controls the timing and we cannot accelerate it, though we will chase on your behalf if a refund is clearly overdue. Refunds are returned to the original payment method.

8. If the airline cancels your flight

Your rights are stronger here. Where an airline cancels, you are generally entitled to choose between a full refund and rebooking onto an alternative flight, whatever fare you originally bought. Depending on the notice given and the reason for the cancellation, you may also be entitled to compensation under UK or EU air passenger rights rules.

Contact the airline first, as they hold your booking and can rebook you fastest, then let us know so we can help with the rest of your itinerary. Compensation claims are settled between you and the airline — we are not party to them, though we will point you to the right process.

9. Travel insurance

Most reasons people need to cancel — illness, bereavement, work, a change of circumstances — are not covered by airline fare rules or air passenger rights, but are commonly covered by travel insurance. Take out a policy when you book rather than shortly before you travel, since cancellation cover generally starts from the date the policy is issued.

10. Complaints

If you are unhappy with how a refund has been handled, contact us with your booking reference and we will look into it. Our full complaints process is set out in our terms & conditions.