If you choose to hold on to an unused or partially used airline ticket (paper or e-ticket), you are costing your agency money. Hundreds of thousands of dollars are lost to the government and taxpayers each year because the government traveler does not initiate the refund process. Government travelers having downgraded, exchanged, unused, or partially unused tickets that were purchased with their individually billed travel charge card account (IBT) should notify the servicing airline when a refund is due. The refund request for the unused or partially used ticket should take place as soon as possible to prevent monetary losses to the government.
Unused or partially used airline tickets are defined as: (1) tickets purchased for government travel, but never used; (2) travel is terminated short of the authorized destination; (3) return portion of a round trip ticket is not used; (4) services actually furnished are different or of a lesser value than those authorized.
If you opt to reserve a “non-refundable” ticket, these generally cannot be refunded. Government travelers are often confused by what non-refundable means. Sometimes these fares are much cheaper and, therefore, the traveler is saving their agency money. Non-refundable actually means that you will not get any money back if you cancel or change your reservation. However, most airlines will allow travelers to exchange the value of the canceled ticket toward the purchase of a new ticket. Let me also add, non-refundable tickets are non-transferable. This means a new ticket must be issued in the same name as that which appears on the canceled ticket.
By: Robyn Rice
“The contents of this message are mine personally and do not reflect any position of the Government or my agency.”