Unused Flights

freddzeppelin

I have a return flight that I never used. I didn't take out travel insurance so I just thought that there was no chance in getting any money back.

I was talking to a mate of mine today though and he said i might be able to get the taxes and charges back. Is this true and if so how do I go about it.

jor el

You apply to the airlne. They will charge a fee for this, and often the fee is equal to, or possibly more than, the tax itself.

golden8

We had booked a flight to Cardiff flying out of Shannon but we could not go that particular day (family committments). Originally we thought we could transfer the tickets to another day thinking that there would be a small admin charge thats no problem. We found that it was cheaper to rebook the flight and wave bye bye to the other tickets. We even thought of changing the name of the tickets thinking if we could not use them we could give them to another person but that was not economical either.

dudara

You often have a certain time limit in which to claim back the tax portion of the flight cost. Make sure that that time period hasn't elapsed.

As another poster has said, the airlines often charge a processing fee for refunding the taxes, so make sure that it is also economical to claim back the tax portion (although Aer Lingus did it for free for me once).

mickoneill30

It's worth looking at. Even if it only gives you €10 or €20 back it's better off in your pocket. The airline will have somewhere on their site (probably buried) explaining how to get a refund.

freddzeppelin

Thanks for the replies guys. I probably should have mentioned that the flight was with Ryanair. I'm after going quickly through their site and it's the best site for giving the worst information! Anyone know the site in and out and could possibly point me in the right direction?

jor el

Since it's Ryanair, don't waste your time. They will definitely charge an admin fee, and from what I remember, it'll be greater than the tax.

mickoneill30

Not necessarily.

From this http://www.ryanair.com/en/questions/can-i-apply-for-a-refund-for-my-unused-flight
a refund costs €20 per person.

Tax can be more than €20 per flight (as an example I just did a quick check of a random Dublin - London flight). The return taxes on that were €72.90. That's just random though. It depends on what fare the OP got.

They don't seem to make it easy but if it was €50 I'd be making the effort.
The address to write to is probably the one on this link http://www.ryanair.com/en/questions/contacting-customer-service
Funny how they can't make that an online form.

The consumer show on RTE for this week had a segment about your rights for refunds from Airlines (it's somewhere on the RTE player).

penexpers

mickoneill30 wrote: »

Tax can be more than €20 per flight (as an example I just did a quick check of a random Dublin - London flight). The return taxes on that were €72.90. That's just random though. It depends on what fare the OP got.

You mean the taxes and charges were 72.90 - the actual tax element of it is much smaller. For a return flight to London, the tax is 10 euro for Ireland and 10 pounds for the UK, so ~22 euro in total.

jor el

mickoneill30 wrote: »

Not necessarily.

From this http://www.ryanair.com/en/questions/can-i-apply-for-a-refund-for-my-unused-flight
a refund costs €20 per person.

It's only the government tax that you get back. The other fees and airport charges are non-refundable.

ryanair.com wrote:

If you do not use your booked flight the air fare, fees and charges are non-refundable but you may apply in writing within one month of the date of original travel for the refund of any government taxes paid.

The tax is only a portion of the total charges, and I believe it'll rarely be more than the €20 admin fee. You'd need to consult your ticket receipt to see what was what.

mickoneill30

penexpers wrote: »

You mean the taxes and charges were 72.90 - the actual tax element of it is much smaller. For a return flight to London, the tax is 10 euro for Ireland and 10 pounds for the UK, so ~22 euro in total.

Do you guys work for Ryanair?

I can't link to an image but it's not hard to check yourself (if you want)

The flight I looked at was Dublin -> Gatwick on 30/09.
The TAX (according to Ryanair) on that flight was €31.99. That's when you click on the Taxes & Fees link and get the breakdown.
The other charge was €6.49 which is for Aviation Insurance / PRM levy. I don't know if that's refundable (probably not).

The return flight had taxes of €27.93

So €59.92 in total (not quite as good as €72 but still worth the €20 fee). It didn't break it down more than that. It just said tax. It didn't say government tax but I don't know anybody else that charges tax. I think the definition of tax is something like money demanded by a government.

If they say they're taking €59.92 in taxes they can hardly turn around and say they're only going to refund €20.

If the government tax is less than €31.99 from Dublin -> London I suppose the next question is who is charging the remaining tax. There's the DAA tax + the tourist tax that I know of but that should be approx €20.

penexpers

mickoneill30 wrote: »

Do you guys work for Ryanair?

I can't link to an image but it's not hard to check yourself (if you want)

I did check myself and Taxes / Fees is still only broken down into

» Taxes and Fees
» Aviation Insurance/PRM Levy

Taxes and fees are the total of the Government Tax plus the airport charges. The airport charges are not refundable.

jor el

mickoneill30 wrote: »

Do you guys work for Ryanair?

Why does that question always get asked when there's a disagreement? Pointing out the facts of a situation doesn't mean you are associated with any particular company, or that you even like them.

http://www.cearta.ie/2007/03/refunding-unincurred-airport-taxes-and-charges/
This site dates back to 2007, but looks about as relevant as I can find. Ryanair claimed, at the time, that the only refundable portion of a Dublin to London flight was the £10 UK APD. I would guess the €10 airport tax at Irish airports is now refundable too, but the sum of those is barely over the €20 admin charge.

The OP is only looking for the tax on one part of his flight to be refunded, so it's not even going to be the sum of both airport charges, it's just one of them. I have never heard of anyone successfully getting their money back from Ryanair.

It may be worth chasing up with the Aviation Regulator to see if that admin charge is something they are allowed to charge. The site linked above suggests that the charge should not be disproportionate, which a €20 fee for a €10 refund would appear to be.

freddzeppelin

I understand that it might not be worth my while if the administration cost is €20.

The guy i mentioned in the first post, mentioned that show on RTE that were dealing with airline refunds. He didn't catch the name of the show though or the time it was on. He did say that they mentioned a site called air-refund.com or something and that's what got me excited.

Mick is that consumer show on the radio or the telly? And what time does it usually be on at?

mickoneill30

freddzeppelin wrote: »

Mick is that consumer show on the radio or the telly? And what time does it usually be on at?

If you go to RTE Player you can find last Mondays one there. It's the consumer show. It's kind of wishy washy and a bit simplistic but interesting enough. Here's a link

Michael O'Leary was on saying they charge €20 because it takes an agent an hour to process a refund. Cityjet were on then saying it takes them a couple of minutes. They must have faster computers.

Philip_irl

Does anyone know if it is worth collecting your taxes back from airlines? After they take out there charge will there be anything left?

jor el

Philip_irl wrote: »

After they take out there charge will there be anything left?

That's the whole point of this thread. It will depend on how much tax was charged, and what the processing fee for the refund is. These can both vary depending on where the flight is too/from, and what the airline charges.

Philip_irl

Cheers Jor_el for the reply. There has to be a easy way to reclaim taxes from airlines?

I tried to get a refund from Ryanair last year but was told that my 30 days had run out. I had to go all around the world to eventually get to speak to someone (in India, if memory serves) before I was told no joy.

upandcumming

Theres a new website up that will do it for you apparently. I can't remember the name but it was on the afternoon show last week.

Philip_irl

upandcumming wrote: »

Theres a new website up that will do it for you apparently. I can't remember the name but it was on the afternoon show last week.

Ok cool. Will have a look around and see if I can find it.

Londonite

Anyone know the name of this website. It is somethging like airflightrefund.ie but that is not it. I can't find it on google. They organise your refund for a small percentage of the refund. Thanks.

Londonite

Found it, it's called www.airtaxrefund.com Going to give it a go and see how I get on.

slimjimmc

Would they be able to get around the admin fee and the 30 day limit that some airlines impose? I doubt it.

Their T&Cs are scary, especially the bit about IP rights:
- you enter a contract and give them Power of Attorney.
- they get 20% of any refund (no foal no fee basis)
- you give them full exclusive royalty-free intellectual property rights to any information you send them. They can do what they like with it, including publish & distribute it. They can sub-licence any info you give to anyone else. :eek: