Airlines that cancel a flight must refund the ticket automatically, and passengers who paid by credit card are owed the money within seven business days of the refund becoming due, the U.S. Department of Transportation says. Nobody has to file a claim to get it. The refund can come as cash or back to the card used for the purchase, not as a voucher unless the passenger picks one.

The rule covers more than outright cancellations. It also reaches flights changed by hours, and some fees paid for services the airline did not deliver.

When the refund becomes due

The Transportation Department’s refunds page, last updated Nov. 7, 2025, says an airline owes a refund when it cancels a flight for any reason, or significantly delays or changes it, and the passenger does not accept the alternative. The airline has to tell passengers about cancellations and significant delays or changes.

The clock starts at a specific point. The page says a refund is due within seven business days after the passenger rejects an offer if the ticket was paid by credit card. It also says that a passenger who does not respond to the offer still gets the refund automatically.

That means a passenger who simply says no to a rebooking, or who never answers the airline, is covered. The page says the money goes back to the original form of payment when no response comes and the alternative flight is not flown.

For a traveler whose flight was just canceled, the question is what the airline offered and whether to take it. Declining the offer, or not answering, triggers the refund, and accepting a rebooked flight does not. The airline also cannot hand over a voucher in place of money unless the passenger affirmatively chooses it, and the department says any voucher must last at least five years.

Stay ahead of government payment news: Miss an enrollment or claim deadline and the money can be gone. Join the Retirement Money Brief and we’ll send you our 2026 Government Check Reality Tracker as a welcome gift.

Get the Brief + the check tracker →

We may earn a commission from links on this page.

The department puts numbers on it. A domestic flight that departs three hours or more earlier, or arrives three hours or more later, than scheduled counts. For an international flight, the figure is six hours earlier or later.

Other changes also count under the department’s explainer: a different origin or destination airport, more connections, and a downgrade to a lower class of service. A passenger who accepts a rebooked flight, or who keeps traveling on a significantly changed itinerary, is not entitled to the refund.

If the ticket was not bought with a credit card

The faster deadline is tied to credit cards. For other payment methods, the department’s page gives 20 calendar days after the passenger rejects the offer, and lists cash and check as examples. The same page shows “20 business days” for cash purchases in another section and does not explain the difference, so travelers who paid in cash or by check are looking at a window of about 20 days either way.

In its rule explainer, dated Nov. 18, 2024, the department says refunds must be made “in cash or in the form of original payment used to make the purchase.” It says refunds must cover the full ticket price, less any transportation already used, plus all government and airline-imposed taxes and fees.

The department also says airlines can offer travel credits, vouchers or other compensation, but the passenger keeps the right to a refund. Any voucher must be valid for at least five years, and material restrictions have to be disclosed.

Extra fees and bags

The refund rule reaches optional services. The department’s page says fees for services such as bags, seat selection, Wi-Fi and meals are refundable when the service was unavailable through no fault of the passenger. Examples include broken Wi-Fi, a canceled flight or involuntary denial of boarding.

A checked bag fee is refundable if the bag is declared lost or significantly delayed. For a domestic flight, that means the bag was not delivered within 12 hours after arrival. For international flights the figure is 15 hours on flights of 12 hours or less and 30 hours on longer ones. The passenger has to file a mishandled baggage report with the airline to claim a bag fee refund.

Tickets bought through a travel agent follow a different path. The department says an agent that is the merchant of record must issue the airfare refund when an airline cancels or significantly changes a flight. For ancillary fees, the page says the passenger must ask the airline.

Passengers whose refund is late have a federal complaint route. The department’s page directs them to the File a Consumer Complaint form. The department’s page does not say how long a review takes. A traveler who files should have the cancellation notice, the date of the decline and the form of payment on hand, since those decide which deadline applies.

The open question for most travelers is the date the refund became due. The page ties the seven business days to the passenger’s rejection of an offer, not to the date of the cancellation itself. A passenger who has the airline’s cancellation notice and the date of the decline has what the department’s clock runs from.

Is the airline refund late, and who gets the next call?

The airline owes the refund, but a late one often turns into a string of calls to the airline, the credit card company and sometimes a travel agent. Without a note of who said what and which reference number came with it, each new call starts from zero.

The related job is the phone call itself. 101 Phone Scripts to Lower Your Bills is a 23-page guide with 101 calls, word for word, for every company you pay, including credit cards and banks: lower rates, fee refunds, no-fee accounts. It also has a call log for who you spoke with, what you saved and the reference number.

Get the airline-refund call log and 101 phone scripts →

This article was produced with AI assistance and edited for accuracy against the sources linked above.