Missing a flight is never fun but things happen. If you’re unable to rebook your flight, your only option is asking for a refund. Now, most airlines will tell you they don’t offer refunds if you miss your flight or simply don’t take it, but what few people know is that you have the right to receive the tax refunded on a flight you didn’t take, which could amount to a nice chunk of change returned to you.
Last summer, due to the French train strikes, I had to purchase a flight to Marseille from Biarritz. The only problem was that one-way tickets were around $500 and round-trip tickets were around $250. Yep, you read that right. This is what airlines do – they know if someone is buying a last minute one-way ticket, it’s likely an emergency and they will pay any price. Airlines are businesses after all. A round-trip is a more common purchase so the price becomes slightly more reasonable.
So obviously I had no choice but to buy the round-trip ticket even though I only needed one of the legs. I decided try and get reimbursed after the day of the “return” flight and see what I could recuperate.
The process was relatively painless. On the Air France website, there is a form you can fill out with information about your flight. If you can’t find the form for the airline you’re looking to be reimbursed for, give them a call! They can likely point you in the right direction.
My “missed” flight was on June 22. On July 12, I finally received a letter from Air France stating I would be reimbursed!
Hey, it wasn’t a full refund, but partial is better than nothing!
Happy travels…
