Sometimes, when your travel plans change, it’s necessary to contact the airline and alter a name, revise a flight time or even cancel the booking altogether. That’s when holidaymakers can be hit with what they may see as ‘concealed’ charges.
Changes do come at a cost, levied by some airlines as an administration fee (it does take time, after all, to go into their system and move things around), but it’s not always immediately apparent what the costs are.
With this in mind, we decided to compile top tips for navigating the nuances of name change, date change and cancellation fees as well as refunds just to make it a little bit easier for you.
Each airline is different – with most having different rules for each class of travel and ticket type. Read on!
Information was gathered from material available on the airlines’ websites and/or from speaking directly to a member of an airline customer services team. The information was then sent to the press office for each airline for fact-checking, and updated if necessary. The airlines that verified the information are easyJet, Monarch, Thomas Cook Airlines, Flybe, Singapore Airlines, Cathay Pacific Airways, Emirates, Etihad Airways, Qantas Airways, Lufthansa, Austrian Airlines, Swiss International Air Lines, Air New Zealand, Thai Airways, British Airways and Norwegian Airways. There was no response from press offices to requests for fact-checking for Qatar Airways, Turkish Airlines, Air France and Virgin Atlantic: in these cases, all information is as provided on the airline’s websites. Ryanair refused to check details without a commercial agreement. All reasonable efforts were made to seek responses.
