Tuesday, July 1, 2014

Get Airport Tax Refund (Unused Flight Ticket)

Airport tax refund
Just missed your flight? Or cancelled your ticket because you were sick? Don’t get ripped of by your travel agent or airline when they say that the ticket is 100% non-refundable!
Unused Flight Tickets Value
Probably ONLY the FARE is non-refundable! The airport taxes imposed by governments & local authorities are ALWAYS refundable. The only thing is; airlines & travel agents won’t tell you this because the make a immense amount of money by keeping those taxes for themselves.
Only in the event you ask for it, they might refund the airport taxes to you. Although you would have a hard time to tell this to the outsourced call-centre agent in India, since he only sticks to his script. & refund airport taxes is not on his list of work.
Airlines must publish the amount of passengers, cargo & mail to the arrival & departing airport, so those airport can calculate the exact amount of taxes & charges. Hence; the airlines are charged by the EXACT amount of passengers actually flown. In the event you didn’t fly, your airline doesn’t must pay your taxes to the airports. That’s not a crime of work, but, they also refuse to refund those taxes automatically to you.
How to get your money back?
Basically ask for it! Airlines & OTA’s (Online Travel Agencies) have contact centers & are available by e-mail, phone & social media. The best way to get your airport tax is by e-mail, so you have everything documented & airlines can never say that they didn’t say to or promised to you.
The first reply you’ll get is probably that your ticket is non-refundable & that therefore a refund of airport taxes is impossible. But keep pushing! Reply that you are not asking for a refund of your ticket, but for a refund of AIRPORT TAXES ONLY. & airport taxes are ALWAYS refundable.
How they airlines work:
Let’s say you’re holding a ticket with airline ABC from Paris to New York. The booking of this flight is 300 passengers. But finally only 285 passengers show up, leaving 15 seats empty.
The airline publish its statistics to the airports of Paris & New York & airline ABC receives an bill for 285 passengers.
& this is where things go wrong: IF the passenger asks for it. But if the passenger is not asking for a refund, airline ABC keeps the funds. & airlines are not willing to tell you that you can receive a refund of those taxes of work. That’s exactly the reason why they tell you that the fare rules don’t permit you a refund in the event you cancel your ticket. So, airlines are not lying to you, they only tell what they require you to know.
However, airline ABC already received for 300 passengers the fare & the taxes. Depending on the fare rules of the ticket, your ticket might be refundable. But in this example you are holding a ticket with the least costly fare base & the rules don’t let you receive a refund on the fare. But what happens with 15 x airport taxes? Nothing! Airline ABC keeps those taxes! Again, this is not illegal, since the airlines created their own policies & regulations. & the policies state that the passenger is eligeble to receive a refund for airport taxes, if the the passenger asks for it.
Now, why all this buzz about a couple of dollars of airport taxes? Here it comes: At Amsterdam Airport Schiphol airlines are holding on average an amount of 30.000 euro of taxes of passenger who don’t show up. Every day!
On Londons Heathrow airport it’s even more: 55.000 euro a day!
& this is YOUR funds. & you are entitled to get this back.
A few things to keep in mind:
-Have you booked your ticket directly with an airline? Contact them! In case you booked a ticket by a (online) travel agent no can help you regrettably. Contact your travel agent in lieu.
-A lot of airlines deduct the refund with an admin fee of 25 or even more. Save your time and only ask for a refund if airport taxes are clearly over 25.
-If you are holding an Easyjet, Ryanair or FlyBe ticket; keep in mind that those airlines have commercial deals with several airports and are not always paying airport taxes. In case you didn’t pay airport taxes, you obviously can’t receive a refund.

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