Consumer advice – travel tips – travel news

As we reported earlier, airline passengers are losing out on money they are entitled to claim back when they don’t take a booked flight. Its only Easyjet that will refund you the tax with no admin fees..

Airline customers are well within their rights to claim back Air Passenger Duty but often don’t because carriers make the process too complex and costly which make it a complete rip-off.

And it’s no trifling amount, either, with some APD amounting to over £100 for a long-haul premium cabin flight. But APD starts from just £11 pp so for a family of 4 thats £44, why let the airlines keep your money.

Many airlines charge a huge fee to process the claim, deterring customers further.

So here is a tip contact your credit card company and ask for a charge back refund – explain you want to reclaim the tax on a flight and the airline is trying to charge you more than the tax to refund it..

Administration charges for reclaiming Air passenger Duty

• •Easyjet – Free
• •Ryanair – £17
• •Flybe – £25
• •Virgin Atlantic – £30
• •British Airways – £30

Which on the basic £11 tax / duty refund is a disgrace.

British Airways says the charge of up to £30 is an accurate reflection of what it actually costs the company in administration costs.

And Flybe told the BBC it had “no choice but to invest in the human resources required to administer the collection and payment of several third party taxes, and our charges are reasonable”.

Among the major airlines, only Easyjet will refund the tax for free.

This means that unless passengers are paying a higher rate of the duty, such charges make it impossible to reclaim.

Which? spokeswoman Rochelle Turner said: “In some cases it costs at least twice as much to reclaim the tax as the tax itself.”