What You Need to Know About Your New Refund Rights

Note: These refund rules take effect on approximately October 26, 2024, but the communicable disease voucher rules take effect on approximately April 26, 2025. Passengers were already entitled to refunds for canceled flights, "significant" schedule changes, and many of these other provisions, but they are now being codified into federal regulation. The automatic refund requirement, the notice of your right to refunds, and the vouchers related to serious communicable diseases are new passenger rights.

What You Need to Know About the DOT’s New Refund Rule

1. Whenever you are legally entitled to a refund, an airline must inform you of that right before offering any alternative flights or alternative forms of reimbursement. If you decline those alternatives, your right to a refund becomes automatic. The airline must proactively provide you with that refund rather than waiting for the passenger to request the refund.
2. You have a right to a full refund when an airline cancels your flight for any reason.
3. You have a right to a full refund when the airline changes your flight schedule by more than three hours (or six hours for international flights).*
4. You have a right to a full refund when the airline changes your departure or arrival airport, lowers your class of service, or adds connecting stops.
5. If you are a passenger with a disability or are booked on the same reservation as a passenger with a disability, you will have additional refund rights when an airline changes your connecting airport or removes an accessibility feature via an aircraft change.
6. You have a right to a full refund of ancillary service fees when those services were not provided to you.
7. You have a right to a full refund of your checked baggage fee when the bag is not delivered to you within 12 hours for domestic flights, 15 hours for international flights under 12 hours, and 30 hours for longer international flights.

What You Need to Know About the DOT’s New Communicable Diseases and Public Health Emergencies Rule

You have the right to receive the full value of your ticket in the form of a transferable travel voucher, with an expiration date no fewer than 5 years in the future, if:

1. A doctor diagnoses you with a serious communicable disease that would pose a threat to the health of others,
2. A doctor advises you not to travel during a public health emergency involving a serious communicable disease, or
3. A travel ban or quarantine frustrates a substantial portion of your trip.

*This provision defines what a significant schedule or itinerary change is. When an airline accelerates your departure time by more than three hours or delays your anticipated arrival time by more than three hours, you are owed an automatic refund if you decline the airline’s offer for an alternative flight. With this refund, the airline cancels your ticket. For international flights, changes of six hours or more trigger this requirement.