How do I get a refund on a flight or hotel booking?

The rule that decides everything

When you cancel, what you get back is set by the terms of the thing you bought — the hotel rate's cancellation policy, or the airline's fare rules. Not by the reason you are cancelling, and not by how sympathetic anyone is.

When they cancel, that flips. An airline that cancels your flight owes you a refund or a rebooking whether the fare was refundable or not — that case is covered in what happens if my flight is cancelled, and it is a different page for a reason. A delay has its own thresholds again.

Everything below is about the first case: you want your money back on something nobody has cancelled but you.

Hotel refunds

The rate decides, not the hotel

The same property will sell a free-cancellation rate and a non-refundable rate side by side at different prices, and two free-cancellation rates at the same hotel can have deadlines days apart. The policy attaches to the rate you clicked, which is why free cancellation does not always mean free and why the deadline is worth reading at the moment of booking rather than the moment of cancelling.

You can read the exact policy for a booking you already hold: open it in your trips and it is shown there in the property's own wording.

Cancelling, and what comes back

Hotel bookings cancel from the booking's own page. Before you confirm, the dialog shows you that rate's policy — and where the rate is non-refundable it says so plainly, including that you may get nothing back. We would rather show you that before the irreversible click than after it.

What comes back is calculated from what you paid us, less any cancellation fee the rate carries. Not from some net figure further up the supply chain. Where a refund is due, the money goes back to the card that paid, and the usual window is five to ten business days.

Once it is done, the cancelled booking stays in your trips with the refund amount and any fee shown on it, so the arithmetic is visible rather than something you reconstruct from a statement.

If the booking was pay-at-property

There may be nothing for us to refund, because we never took the room money — but a late cancellation can still trigger a charge from the hotel. What "pay at property" means covers which parts are taken by whom.

Flight refunds

Flights work differently enough that it is worth stating flatly: most airline tickets are not refundable, and buying one is buying a seat under the rules the airline published, not a deposit you can withdraw.

What is refundable even on a non-refundable ticket

Two things people leave on the table.

Taxes and government charges. On many non-refundable fares, the airline keeps the fare but the taxes and certain airport charges were only ever collected on your behalf and are recoverable if you do not fly. It is not a large sum on a short hop and it is not nothing on a long-haul ticket. You have to ask; it is rarely offered.

The 24-hour window on US bookings. For tickets bought in the United States at least seven days before departure, the rules require the airline to let you cancel for a full refund within 24 hours of booking. If you have just booked and immediately realised the date is wrong, that window is the cheapest fix available, and it closes fast.

How a flight cancellation request works with us

We are an agent. The airline sets the fare rules, decides the outcome and releases the money, and we cannot overrule any of that.

So the flight control in your trips is a request, not a button that performs a cancellation. It says so before you submit it: fare rules govern, most fares are not refundable, it can take up to fifteen business days to get an answer, and submitting the request does not guarantee a refund. The status changes to show a cancellation has been requested, and we come back to you with the airline's answer.

That is a less satisfying experience than a one-click cancel. It is also the truth about what an agent can do, and we would rather set the expectation correctly than take the click and disappoint you a fortnight later.

Where the money actually goes

Back down the chain it came up, to the original payment method. This is the single most useful fact about refunds, because it explains the timing.

A refund is not a reversal. The original charge stays on your statement and a separate credit appears, usually days later and sometimes on the following statement. Your card issuer controls that last step and neither we nor the airline can accelerate it.

Three things that make a refund look missing when it is not:

• You are looking for the original line to vanish. It will not. Look for a new credit.
• The card has been replaced. A refund to a closed or reissued card usually still finds you through the issuer, but it can take longer. Tell your bank it is coming.
• It was a flight and a hotel booked together. That is two payments, not a double charge — and it is therefore two refunds, which can arrive on different days with different outcomes. The flight side can be refused while the hotel side is refunded in full.

Chargebacks are a last resort, not a first step

Disputing the charge with your bank feels like the fast route and it usually is not. It suspends the normal process, it can freeze the booking record while the dispute runs, and if the rate genuinely was non-refundable the dispute is likely to fail on the terms you agreed at booking.

Ask us first, in writing, with the reference. If we cannot resolve it, a chargeback is still available afterwards — the reverse is not true.

What to send us

Email bookings@bookthebed.com, or use the contact form, with:

1. The booking reference — the one labelled Ref in your trips, or Ref (PNR) for a flight. How to find your booking covers where those live and which one to quote to whom.
2. What you want — a refund, a change, or an answer about a payment. Say which; the outcome often follows the first thing you ask for.
3. The amount and date on your statement, if the question is about money that has or has not moved.

We can tell you what was booked, what was charged, what the rate or fare rules said, and what stage a refund is at. We will not invent a date for money that is with an airline, and we cannot pay compensation on an airline's behalf — that entitlement sits with the carrier, as the bumping and delay rules set out.

Our cancellation policy is the full written version of all of this.

How to not need this page

The cheapest refund is the one you never have to ask for.

• Take the cancellable rate when the gap is small. Compare the two prices at booking, not the two policies at cancelling. Against a four-star London night at a median of $547 among the hotels we can book — see what hotels actually cost — a modest premium for a rate you can undo is often the better trade.
• Check the dates before you pay. Most refund requests are date errors, and the 24-hour window on a US flight booking is the only free undo that exists.
• Book the flight and room as one trip where it suits you. One trip is one record and one conversation when something goes wrong.

Common questions

How long does a hotel refund take?

Where a refund is due, it goes back to the card that paid and typically lands within five to ten business days. The last leg belongs to your bank.

How long does a flight refund take?

Longer, and less predictably. A cancellation request can take up to fifteen business days for an answer, and payment follows the answer. Anyone quoting you a firm date for an airline refund is guessing.

Can I get a refund on a non-refundable hotel rate?

Normally no — that is what the discount bought. It is worth asking the property directly if circumstances are genuinely exceptional, and worth checking whether travel insurance covers the reason. Neither is a right.

Can I get the taxes back on a non-refundable flight?

Often yes. The fare is forfeit; taxes and some charges collected on your behalf usually are not. Ask explicitly, because it is rarely volunteered.

I cancelled but the charge is still on my statement.

That is expected. Refunds appear as a separate credit rather than removing the original line. Check for a new entry, and give it the full window before raising it.

Do I get a refund if I just do not turn up?

No. A no-show is the worst outcome available: the rate is normally charged in full and the remaining nights of a multi-night stay can be released. Cancel, even late, even when you expect to get nothing — it costs nothing to be on the record.

The hotel says they cancelled it. Why has nobody refunded me?

Take the property's cancellation in writing and send it to us with the reference. A cancellation at the desk does not automatically travel back down the booking chain, and the written record is what moves it.

Can I cancel a booking without an account?

Not from the site — the controls live on the booking page, which needs you signed in. Sign up with the email address you booked with and the booking appears by itself, or email us. Finding your booking has both routes.

I want to change the dates rather than cancel.

Ask before you cancel. A change is sometimes cheaper than a cancel-and-rebook, and cancelling first destroys that option. For hotels the property decides; for flights the fare rules do, and the change fee is shown with the fare.

I have not booked yet and want to keep my options open.

Then this is a rate decision, not a refund decision. Search a city, search flights, or browse the destination guides and the hotel directory, and compare the cancellable price against the locked one before you choose.