Tax refunds on non-refundable air fares?

[TW]Fox

[TW]Fox

[TW]Fox

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Hi guys,

Most of the decent deals are non-refundable. However, the tax is so huge that you end up paying most of your fare in tax - as an example I've bought a ticket which is £380 tax and £180 actual air fare (£90 each way). As it's a cheap ticket, its not refundable or changeable in any way.

But if I didn't use/cancelled the return portion, are you able to receive the tax back? So you'd get back nearly £200 despite it being 'non refundable'?

Am I missing something here :confused:

If this is true it seems to make cheap non refundable air fares a complete non issue, all you lose is the air fare portion of the ticket which in many cases is virtually nothing?
 
You can request a refund from the airline I think. Was reading it the other day for uni work. But they'll charge an admin fee.
 
Apparently yes you can claim tax back if you cancel, but they might slap an 'admin' charge on it. :)

If you just didn't use it though, I think you'd struggle as they wouldn't be able to re-sell the ticket and so the tax would be paid albeit on an empty seat. :)

If you need to change a 'non-changeable' ticket, often airlines will let you 'upgrade' to a changeable ticket for a fee, and then you can change to whatever date you need. I.e. I was going to miss my flight back from L.A. so for £100 they let me 'upgrade' to a flexible ticket, then change it to the next day. (Virgin Atlantic)

Give them a call is your best bet

*edit*

Read around a bit more, seems tax is only payable if you travel, so even if you just don't turn up yeah you should be able to claim tax back :)
 
Last edited:
Rich_L said:
If you need to change a 'non-changeable' ticket, often airlines will let you 'upgrade' to a changeable ticket for a fee, and then you can change to whatever date you need. I.e. I was going to miss my flight back from L.A. so for £100 they let me 'upgrade' to a flexible ticket, then change it to the next day. (Virgin Atlantic)
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Hugely useful to know. Hadn't even thought they do that.

Read around a bit more, seems tax is only payable if you travel, so even if you just don't turn up yeah you should be able to claim tax back :)
Click to expand...

Epic.

Thinking about it even more you could use this to get cheaper one way tickets etc - a return to destination A is £500 a One Way is £400, but buy the return and dont travel on the return lag, claim the tax back and you've got a one way ticket for cheaper than an official one way ticket.
 
You need to knew exactly what is and isn't tax.
Most airlines bundle together "Taxes, fees, misc and other surcharges" under the whole title of "tax".
This is a clever way of making the ticket seem as cheap as possible.
However once it comes to refund time this "tax figure" is broken down and you can only get a refund on what is actually tax minus an admin fee.

Basically the tax figures are known as "Air Passenger Duty".
£5 economy to Europe, £10 for non-economy.
£20 economy to rest of world, £40 for non-economy rest of world.

The airline is then allowed to make an "admin" charge - usually anything between £10 & £20.
So your average, 2 people flying to Europe economy, the refund due is swallowed up by the admin fee.
 
[TW]Fox;14022106 said:
Thinking about it even more you could use this to get cheaper one way tickets etc - a return to destination A is £500 a One Way is £400, but buy the return and dont travel on the return lag, claim the tax back and you've got a one way ticket for cheaper than an official one way ticket.
Click to expand...

Surely going on the one part of the flight counts as taking the flight/entering into the contract, due to booking it as a one item. If that makes sense.
 
InvaderGIR said:
Surely going on the one part of the flight counts as taking the flight/entering into the contract, due to booking it as a one item. If that makes sense.
Click to expand...

This doesn't appear to have any bearing on the tax - the tax is per flight taken not booking made it would seem.
 
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