Tax/surcharge for unused flights

I am sure this has been answered before but can you get the tax and/or surcharges back if you cancel a non-refundable fare.

Many thanks

Yes you can. However, there is an administrative charge for doing so (ISTBC), so you may not get the whole lot back. I know this may seem unfair, but don't shoot the messenger!

Slightly OT - byt Ryanair's "admin charge" for claiming a refund of taxes+charges on an unused ticket is all but the same as the taxes+charges [of course, it's not intended to deter you from claiming the refund, which Ryanair will happily pocket if you don't claim it].

I would hope that as a "full service" airline, VS do not make similar high charges - but openly admit I have not checked their website / T&C's of carriage.

[Nottingham Nick]

According to Richard Mannion (who is rarely wrong :D ) in this thread VS do not levy a surcharge / admin fee.

Nick

Um, I got charged £25 yesterday as an admin fee by VS. But then I am a mere Knight and not a Lord.......

[Nottingham Nick]

In that case, I bow to you, Sir Knight.[}:)]:D

You can't beat first hand knowledge.

Nick

Let's test the experts evern more. Below is the price for us all to travel to LAX, we do nto need the return to the UK and the one way adult fare was 551 so the returms are much cheaper. How is the 681 calculated and how much of it is for the return flight which we do not need?

A seperate point is that I proceeded through the booking process and this was shown as an N fare which makes the flying club miles you will earn more than I expected.

Thanks in advance for your explainations

2 adults GBP 276.00 each
3 children GBP 207.00 each
Total taxes, fees, charges and surcharges. GBP 681.00
Total GBP 1,854.00
Flying Club miles you will earn Miles 10884 each

There was a good article about this in this months (july's) conde nast magazine (pg 24), it said that on a london to new york non-refundable ticket, BA would rebate £108 (after £30 fee) of extras on an unused ticket. It also says that Virgin doesn't have a fee for refunding taxes and charges on non-refundable tickets.

[preiffer]

The miles include your 50% flown bonus as a gold card holder, manymiles.

The fare class doesn't actually affect the tax amounts, so here is the full breakdown of the taxes applicable to a return flight to LAX:

Tax: US International Arrival Tax $14.50
Tax: United Kingdom Passenger Service Charge £13.00
Tax: United Kingdom Air Passengers Duty £20.00
Tax: US Customs Fee $5.00
Tax: US Immigration Fee $7.00
Tax: USDA APHIS Fee $5.00
Tax: US September 11th Security Fee $2.50
Tax: US International Departure Tax $14.50
Tax: VS YQ surcharge £75.00
Tax: US Passenger Facility Charge $4.50

[RichardMannion]

Originally posted by sailor99
Um, I got charged £25 yesterday as an admin fee by VS. But then I am a mere Knight and not a Lord.......

Hi Sailor,

You would have paid a fee if your ticket had an element of FARE that was refundable. If the fare is non-refundable, and you claim back the taxes, you will not pay any fee.

I seem to recall that its:
£0 fee if the Fare element is non-refundable (think of your cheap N and X tickets)
£30 if some of the fare element is refundable (think of your B where you can get x% of the fare back)
£15 if all of the fare is refundable, think of your full Y fares.

For the US it is $25 regardless for for the 2nd two options.

Jeremy - what were you changing, was it a FC reward flight? If so, it should have been waived as a Gold.

Thansk,
Richard

Thank you very much for bringing this up - the thought would never have crossed my mind otherwise!

I called up this week and formally cancelled the 4th (to-be-unused) leg of my Z-class LHR-SYD (the HKG-LHR leg) and was told I'd be getting about 150 quid back - a lot more than I expected! If I hadn't seen this thread, I'd have just let it go, so I probably owe one or two people a drink should we be in the same city at any point...

Can you claim retrospectively? I let a flight go back in April since I ended up working my needs around a business trip. I was happy to get where i was originally wanting to be in greater comfort so didn't bother claiming the taxes back.... but now i think about it... money's money!