Start here: what does your fare actually say?
"Non-refundable" is a category, not a single rule. Two tickets on the same flight in the same cabin can carry different conditions depending on which fare bucket they came from. Everything below depends on the fare rules attached to your specific booking, which is a document most travellers never see.
Want to know what your specific fare allows? Call with your booking reference and we will read the fare rules to you.
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Option 1: travel credit
The most common outcome. You cancel before departure and the value becomes a credit with the airline, sometimes minus a cancellation fee. Points worth checking:
- You must cancel before the flight departs. No-show and the value is usually gone entirely — this single action destroys more ticket value than any airline policy.
- Expiry varies. Some credits run one year from issue, others from the original booking date, which is considerably worse.
- Credits are often name-locked to the original passenger.
Option 2: the DOT rules that override your fare
Federal rules do not care that your ticket is non-refundable in these situations. You are entitled to a full refund if:
- the airline cancels your flight and you decline the alternative;
- the airline significantly changes the schedule — 3+ hours domestic, 6+ international, an airport change, extra connections, or an involuntary downgrade — and you decline;
- you are involuntarily downgraded and still travel, in which case the fare difference is refunded.
This is why checking your itinerary for schedule changes before cancelling is worth five minutes. A schedule change that already happened may have quietly turned your non-refundable ticket into a refundable one.
Option 3: waivers
Airlines publish blanket waivers during storms, ground stops and major disruptions, letting anyone on affected routes change or cancel without penalty. They also apply case-by-case exceptions for documented circumstances — serious illness, a death in the immediate family, military orders. These are goodwill policies, not entitlements, they usually require documentation, and the answer depends heavily on the carrier.
What we will not tell you: that we can get money back on a non-refundable ticket. Nobody can promise that. Any service that does is either misrepresenting what it does or planning to charge you for submitting a form you could submit yourself. We will read your fare rules, tell you what exists, and book the alternative if there is one worth booking.
Option 4: buy new and walk away
Counterintuitive but frequently correct. When the cancellation fee plus the fare difference on a change exceeds the cost of a new one-way, the old ticket is not worth rescuing. Run the numbers on both before deciding — and remember that abandoning an outbound may cancel the return on the same booking.
What does not work
- Chargebacks on a valid ticket. The airline delivered what it sold; the dispute will fail and may get you flagged with the carrier.
- Waiting to see. Value evaporates at departure. Cancel first, decide later.
- Selling or transferring the ticket. Tickets are non-transferable and name changes are prohibited or expensive on almost every fare.
We will price the alternatives honestly — including when doing nothing is the better option.
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Frequently asked questions
You can, in specific circumstances: if the airline cancels or significantly changes the flight and you decline the alternative, federal rules entitle you to a full refund regardless of the fare type. What you cannot do is get cash simply because your plans changed.
On most fares a no-show forfeits the remaining value and cancels every later segment on the same ticket, including the return. Cancelling before departure — even minutes before — usually preserves at least a credit. It is the highest-value phone call in air travel.
It varies. Vouchers issued in place of a refund after an airline cancellation must be valid at least five years. Credits from a voluntary cancellation typically run about a year, sometimes from the original booking date rather than the cancellation date.
Several airlines will waive penalties for documented serious illness or a death in the immediate family. These are goodwill policies rather than rights, they require documentation, and outcomes differ by carrier.
We do not file refund claims — those go to the airline directly. What we do is read your fare rules, tell you plainly what your options are, and book the alternative flight if that is the sensible route. If the honest answer is that nothing can be recovered, we will say so rather than charge you to find out.