Refund and cancellation policy

Most airline tickets are non-refundable, and that is set by the airline, not by us. Whether you can cancel, change, or get money back depends on the fare rules of the specific ticket you bought. We tell you those rules before you pay so the decision is an informed one.

Three things are always true:

• We do not keep money for a service we did not provide. If we cannot issue your ticket, you get everything back.
• Where a refund is due from the airline, we pass on what the airline releases in full — we do not deduct a fee of our own from it.
• We will tell you what a cancellation is actually worth before you ask us to make it, so you can decide whether it is worth doing.

United States Department of Transportation rules require airlines and ticket agents to let you cancel a reservation without penalty within 24 hours of booking, provided the booking was made at least seven days before the flight departs, and to refund you in full.

Where your itinerary falls within that rule, this applies to bookings made through us. Contact us as soon as possible within that window — the right expires 24 hours after the booking is made, and we cannot extend it.

Some airlines instead offer to hold a fare for 24 hours rather than refund a completed booking. Where that applies to your itinerary, we will tell you which of the two you have.

A booking is not binding until the airline issues the ticket. If you decide against the trip before that point, or if we cannot secure the quoted fare, you are refunded in full with no fee. This is not a concession — no service has been delivered yet.

Once a ticket exists, the airline's fare rules govern. In practice tickets fall into three groups:

• Refundable fares. Can be cancelled for a refund of the fare, usually less an airline cancellation charge.
• Changeable but non-refundable fares. No money back, but the value can often be applied to a future ticket, less an airline change fee and any difference in fare. These credits usually expire — we will tell you when.
• Fully non-refundable, non-changeable fares. Nothing is recoverable except, in most cases, certain government taxes and airport charges that are only payable when you actually fly.

Recovering unused taxes

Even on a non-refundable ticket, some taxes and airport charges are refundable if you do not travel, because the airline never has to pay them. The amount is often small and airlines do not refund it automatically. Ask us and we will make the claim; if the recoverable amount is less than the cost of processing it, we will tell you that plainly rather than charging you a fee to recover less than the fee.

What we charge

We do not charge our own fee to process a change or cancellation. What it costs is whatever the airline, hotel, rental company or cruise line charges under its own rules — passed on to you unchanged.

Our service fee on the original booking covers work already done and is not refundable, except where we could not issue your ticket or where the 24-hour right applies. The full schedule is on the fees and charges page.

Contact us at info@viajarprimero.com with your booking reference and what you need. Do not assume a cancellation has happened until we confirm it in writing — an unattended request is not a cancellation, and a no-show usually forfeits more than a cancellation would.

We will tell you what the cancellation or change is worth and what it will cost before we action it, and we will wait for you to confirm.

Within 24 hours of departure, or once travel has started, contact the operating airline directly. They control the booking at that stage and can act immediately; we cannot.

A refund passes through the airline before it reaches you, so the timing is largely outside our control. Typically:

• We submit the refund request to the airline within 3 business days of you confirming it.
• Airlines commonly take 7 to 30 days to process a refund, and sometimes longer for tickets bought through a consolidator.
• Once the airline releases the funds, we pass them to your original payment method within 5 business days.
• Your bank or card issuer may then take several more days to show it.

We refund to the original payment method. If a refund is taking materially longer than this, ask us — we will chase the airline and tell you where it actually is rather than repeating a generic timeline.

When an airline cancels a flight, changes the schedule significantly, or denies you boarding, your rights come from the carrier and from the regulations covering your route — for example EU Regulation 261/2004 or UK261 for qualifying flights, or US DOT rules for flights to and from the United States. These rights can include a full refund or compensation, and they are generally stronger than anything in a fare rule.

We will tell you what has changed as soon as the airline tells us, explain the options we can see, and help you claim. We cannot grant a refund or compensation on the airline's behalf, and we will not pretend otherwise — but we will not leave you to work out the process alone either.

If you believe a charge is wrong, come to us first — most billing disputes are a misunderstanding about what a fare rule permits, and we can usually resolve it faster than a bank can. If a chargeback is raised for a booking that was properly delivered, we may recover the amount and any associated costs from you. Viajarprimero keeps records of every quote and confirmation for exactly this reason: so what was agreed is a matter of record rather than recollection.