Significant flight delays will give us a right to a full refund from the airline or travel agency we booked from.
If an airline on which you have a ticket cancels or delays your flight significantly, you have an absolute right to a prompt full refund. The refund must include any ancillary fees you purchased such as a checked bag or seat assignment. That’s the gist of a final rule published last week by the Department of Transportation (DoT), and it establishes that right firmly and with no exceptions.
The rule applies to both foreign and domestic airlines, for flights within, to, or from the United States. The final rule doesn’t establish any major new consumer protection but it does define and codify previously established rights.
Prompt Defined
Prior legislation requires prompt action, and the final rule defines prompt as “refunds made within seven business days after the earliest date the refund was requested for credit card purchases, and within 20 calendar days after the earliest date the refund was requested for cash, check, debit card, or other forms of purchase,”Significant Defined
According to DoT rule, a refund is required when a delay is significant or a cancellation results in a significant delay in a consumer’s reaching his or her final destination. Significant is now defined as three hours for a domestic flight and six hours for an international flight.Responsibility Defined
The party responsible for making the refund is the party through which a consumer purchases a ticket. That can mean an airline, for a direct purchase, or a travel agency, online or bricks-and-mortar third-party agency.Applicability
The refund rule applies to any and all tickets, even the most nonrefundable. It also applies to all delays and cancellations—even those caused by external force majeure events such as weather, volcanoes, fires, and such. It updates a rule that societies have lived by since there were trading societies:“ You pay for something but the supplier doesn’t deliver, you get your money back.” It’s that simple.Why the Rule is Needed
Prior to the issuance of this and related rules, airline obligations during a delay or cancellation were largely defined by each line’s contract of carriage. And those contract provisions varied greatly among the different lines; some quite specific and others not even mentioning the situation.
