Why can’t I get a full refund on flights I can’t take?

Have a question? Ask our expert Simon Calder

You could use the booking as the basis for a future Alicante trip (Getty/iStock)

Q We are travelling one way by road to Benidorm in May, so we needed to book flights back. I went on the Ryanair app and booked flights for me and my husband from Alicante to Luton. Unfortunately, my husband at the same time was booking flights from Alicante into Birmingham on the same day.

Ryanair said that I couldn’t have a refund, because the flights were booked from two different email addresses. I did explain that it was impossible, barring time travel, for us to take both flights. How can we be on both flights on the same day from the same airport? Surely I can get a refund on one of them?

Kath C

A Ryanair has a generous “48-hour free of charge grace period for changes to bookings”. But the operative word is changes. If you make a mistake with a passenger name, the date of travel or you book a route in the wrong direction (eg Luton-Alicante rather than Alicante-Luton) then you have two days to change it, so long as you have booked direct with the airline. But you cannot cancel and get your money back.

This is different from the British Airways policy, which gives you 24 hours to cancel the reservation completely for a full refund (again, if you book direct with BA). For easyJet, the same option applies though with a £30 charge for online changes, £5 more for call-centre refunds.

In the circumstances, all I can suggest is that you see if friends or family are able to use your flights, in which you can make a free name change within the 48 hours, or you change the date for the flights and use the booking as the basis for a future trip.

Every day our travel correspondent Simon Calder tackles a reader’s question. Just email yours to s@hols.tv or tweet @simoncalder