Delta Airlines Cancellation Policy

How to Cancel or Refund Your Delta Airlines Flight – Things to Know About Delta Airlines Cancelation Policy and Refund Policy

Travel plans can change anytime. Be it a death or disease in the family or an important deadline at work – your travel plans can be thrown out of gear anytime without prior notice. Therefore, it is important to be prepared for contingencies while you book your flight tickets. And the best way to do that is to have prior knowledge of the flight cancelation and refund policies of the airlines,so that in the likely event of a serious change in plan, you can cancel your tickets hassle-free without suffering significant losses. The Delta Airlines Cancelation policy is an ethical set of guidelines and instructions created with passengers’ needs and genuine concerns in mind. The policy is described in great detail below.

The Delta Airlines Cancellation Policy

The Delta Airlines Cancellation Policyaddresses the genuine needs of passengers in relation to cancelations of flights and refunds. It is a collection of specific terms and conditions and strict policy-related guidelines as well as cancelation and refund procedures and information about the applicable cancelation fees.

For a clear understanding of the Delta Airlines cancellation policy,it is important to know about the different Delta Airlines fares and types of tickets first and the Delta Airlines cancelation guidelinesrelated to them. All Delta flight tickets can be classified into two major types –Refundable tickets and non-refundable tickets.

Non-Refundable Tickets:

As per the rule book, non-refundable tickets are those for which passengers aren’t allowed to request and receive refunds if they cancel their flights. Although this is true in a standard sense, for Delta Airlines, the term, “non-refundable,” could be quite misleading, because here, passengers are allowed to get their booking amounts back despitecanceling their non-refundable tickets. The only difference is that for non-refundable fares, refunds are issued in the form of eCredits and Delta Certificates rather than in the form of cash. The eCredits and Delta Certificates issued are of equal value to the booking amounts paid. Delta Airlines has six types of fares which are,

1. i. Basic Economy
2. ii. Economy/Main Cabin
3. iii. Delta Comfort Plus
4. iv. First Class Domestic
5. v. Delta Premium Select
6. vi. Delta One

Out of these, Basic Economy, Economy and Comfort Plus fares are, sometimes, referred to as the Delta Main Cabin Class, while the rest of the three fares are referred to as the Premium Cabin Class. And most of these fares are non-refundable.

Also, as a standard practice, cancelation fees are charged for canceling non-refundable tickets. But Delta Airlines has recently removed cancelation and refund fees from most non-refundable tickets on most routes under the Delta Airlines No Cancelation Fee Policy . However, Basic Economy tickets have been kept out of the purview of this policy. Cancelation fees are still deducted from the value of these tickets before encoding the remaining value into eCredit vouchers and Delta certificates and issuing them to passengers.

Refundable Tickets:

In Delta terminology, Refundable tickets are those on which passengers can claim and receive full cash refunds in the event of a cancelation. Refundable tickets are flexible with fewer restrictions imposed on them. Mostly, passengers are not required to pay any cancelation and refund fees for canceling their refundable tickets. With refundable tickets, passengers are assured of getting their full booking amounts back provided they adhere to the cancelation and refund norms while canceling their tickets. Since most fares with Delta are non-refundable, usually, a few Delta Premium Select and other premium cabin tickets are sold as refundable fares at high prices. Refundable tickets with Delta are pretty expensive.

Award Tickets

Delta SkyMiles® program is among the most highly-regarded frequent flier programs in the US and Canada. Under the program, passengers are allowed to buy Award tickets with accrued miles collected from each travel. There are two types of award tickets - first, which are purchased by passengers in exchange for miles and second, those are purchased by passengers with both miles and money. These award tickets are also refundable in the sense that passengers get their miles redeposited to their SkyMiles® accounts if they cancel these. And most importantly, passengers aren’t charged any redeposit fee for getting their miles back as per the Delta Airlines Cancelation policy.

The Delta Airlines Cancelation Policy Guidelines

The key points and the main highlights of the Delta Airlines Cancelation policy and the guidelines and terms and conditions associated withit have been summarized in the following points. All these points have been elaborately discussed in the subsequent sections.

1. i. Delta Airlines allows passengers to cancel their flight tickets any time before departure, and claim refunds of the amount paid. Cancelations can be processed online or requests may be submitted through various offline channels as well.
2. ii. Delta Airlines has both refundable and non-refundable tickets. It offers six types of fares. Most of these are non-refundable, while a few high-value tickets in the Premium Cabin class are sold as refundable tickets.
3. iii. Cancelation fees on most non-refundable fares are waived on certain routes. Under the Delta Airlines Cancelation Policy, passengers are not required to pay any penalty for canceling non-refundable tickets if their travels originate in the US, Canada, or the Caribbean, or in Europe, Africa and India. Outside these zones, passengers are charged a cancelation fee of up to $400 on non-refundable tickets.
4. iv. Delta Airlines Basic Economy tickets are non-changeable and non-refundable. But they can be canceled against a cancelation fee that can range between $99 and $199 depending on routes.
5. v. Unlike other airlines, Delta Airlines allows passengers to get refunds on both refundable and non-refundable fares under the Delta Airlines Refund Policy.
6. vi. In the case of non-refundable fares, the value of the ticket is encoded into eCredits and Delta Certificates that are issued to passengers. These eCredits or Certificates remain valid for up to one year from the dates of issuance and can be used in the future for the purchase of tickets.
7. vii. Whether passengers receive the full value of the tickets or the amount paid towards bookings in the form of credit vouchers or certificates depends on applicable cancelation charges and other deductions.
8. viii. As per the Delta Airlines Refund policy, Passengers can claim and obtain full cash refunds after the cancelation of refundable fares, for which refund requests can be made both online and offline.
9. ix. Passengers are also eligible to get full cash refunds under the policy if their flights have been canceled without warnings or significantly delayed due to reasons within Delta Airline’s control. They have to submit the Travel Disruptions Form in such cases to claim their refunds.
10. x. Cash refunds on non-refundable tickets are not allowed except for flight disruptions as per the Delta Airlines Refund policy.
11. xi. Tickets booked through third-party travel websites or Delta-authorized travel agencies are not eligible for cash refunds.
12. xii. Refunds for tickets that were purchased with Credit cards are processed within 7 business days of submitting the refund requests.
13. xiii. Refunds for tickets that were purchased with cash or cheques are processed within 20 business days of the receival of the refund request.
14. xiv. As far as Cash refunds are concerned, they are made to the original forms of payment, while credit voucher refunds are sent to passengers’ online Delta accounts.
15. xv. Delta Airlines passengers also enjoy the privilege of getting a refund of the premium they paid towards their trip protection plans if they cancel their flights.
16. xvi. Under the Delta Airlines Refund policy, passengers can even claim and obtain reimbursements for their hotel, transport and meal expenses if their flights are abruptly canceled or significantly delayed without prior notice.
17. xvii. Passengers canceling their award tickets can get their miles redeposited to their SkyMiles® accounts without being charged any redeposit fee under the Delta Airlines Cancelation policy.
18. xviii. Delta Airlines also has a 24-hour cancelation policy known as the Delta Airlines 24-hour Risk-Free Cancelation policy which allows passengers to cancel their reservations without cancelation fees and get full cash refunds without deduction within 24 hours of booking or ticket purchase. This policy applies to all fares including Basic Economy and surpasses the general terms and conditions of the Delta Airlines Cancelation policy.
19. xix. Delta Airlines is very strict on no-shows. It forfeits the entire booking amount if passengers fail to show up for their flights.
20. xx. Both the Delta Airlines Cancelation and Refund policies specify that all cancelation and refund requests must be made before departure.

How to Cancel Delta Airlines Flights?

Delta Airlines has a robust cancelation and change policy that recognizes passengers’ needs for cancelations or changes in flights due to unavoidable circumstances and allows them to do so using various methods without any hassle. Among the many different ways of changing or canceling Delta Airlines flight tickets, the easiest and most commonly used processes are mentioned below.

Online flight Cancelation

The most convenient way to cancel Delta Airlines flights is to do it online through the official website of the airline. The website is user-friendly, the pages are easily navigable and the instructions are very easy to follow. Most importantly, the online method allows you to change or cancel flights from the comfort of your home. The steps involved are detailed in the following points.

1. i. First, get your booking confirmation number from the flight receipt you received by email after you purchased your Delta ticket.
2. ii. Now, type www.delta.com on your browser and press Enter. The homepage of the official website of the airline would open. Look for ‘My Trips’ on the menu bar right beside the Delta logo. It would be the 3rd menu from the left. Click on that.
3. iii. It would ask you for your booking confirmation number and your first and last names. Enter all details and click on the red circle with a white arrow.
4. iv. This would retrieve your flight details. On the Trip Details page, select “Need to Cancel?” and then “Start Flight Cancelation.”
5. v. Now, follow the prompts one after the other before confirming cancelation and finally submitting the cancelation request.

The ticket value is converted into an eCredit or a Delta Certificate after the cancelation process is complete or a refund is made to the original form of payment if the canceled ticket qualifies for the same.

Offline Ticket Cancelation via Phone Call

Passengers can also cancel their flights and request a refund by calling the Delta Reservation Sales phone number. The Reservation Sales team can be reached at the following toll-free phone numbers +1- 800-847-0578 or +1-888-261-0054 if you are in the US or Canada. If you are from any other country, you can find your local Reservation Sales helpdesk phone number on the official website of the airline.

Offline Cancelation through Travel Agencies and Other Delta Airlines Sources

If you purchased your Delta flight ticket through a Delta Airlines authorized travel agency, then for the cancelation of your ticket, you must visit the same agency.You can also cancel your Delta Airlines ticket from other Delta Airlines sources such as the airport ticket counters and Delta ticket offices.

Offline Flight Cancelation by Postal Mail

If you are old school and not comfortable with any of the cancelation procedures mentioned above, you can cancel your flight and ask for a refund by sending your paper ticket via US postal mail to the Delta Passenger Refunds Department at the below-mentioned address.

Delta Air Lines Inc.

Passenger Refunds

P.O Box – 20537

Atlanta, GA – 30320-2537

Delta Airlines SkyMiles® Cancelation Policy

Delta passengers with SkyMiles® accounts can redeem their accrued miles and purchase Delta tickets. Since such tickets are purchased paying with gathered reward points, they are known as award tickets. Delta Passengers are allowed to cancel their award tickets and get the miles back to their SkyMiles® accounts. The guidelines related to the Delta Airlines SkyMiles® Cancelation Policyare mentioned below.

1. i. Delta Airlines allows SkyMiles® members to cancel or make changes to their award tickets anytime they want before departure.
2. ii. Delta Airlines doesn’t charge its passengers any redeposit and reissue fees for canceling their award tickets. Delta has completely eliminated these two fees from award tickets.
3. iii. The no-redeposit fee and no-reissue fee policy stated above applies to all travels originating in the US and Canada only. The fees are still applicable for travels originating in other parts of the world.
4. iv. Even though Basic Economy tickets are non-refundable, passengers who have purchased Basic Economy tickets with reward points can still cancel their tickets.In such cases, standard cancelation charges are assessed in terms of miles and deducted from the tickets’ values. The remaining miles are then redeposited into the SkyMiles accounts of passengers.

The Delta Airlines 24-Hour Risk-Free Cancellation Policy

Delta Airlines allows passengers to cancel their flight tickets without any penalty and receive full refunds within 24 hours of booking under the Delta Airlines 24-Hour Risk-Free Cancellation Policy. This applies to bothrefundable and non-refundable tickets. To get free-cancelation benefits under the policy, the following terms and conditions must be met.

1. i. To be eligible for free cancelation and full refunds under the 24-Hour Risk-Free Cancellation Policy, tickets must be purchased directly from Delta Airlines only.
2. ii. The tickets must be e-tickets purchased from various Delta Airlines sources such as the official website of the airline, airport ticket counters, Delta ticket offices or Reservation sales.
3. iii. Paper tickets andtickets purchased from third-party websites and Delta-authorized travel agencies aren’t eligible for the free cancelation and full-refund benefits under the policy.
4. iv. This policy applies to all tickets and fare types including the Basic Economy.
5. v. To qualify for the benefits under the policy, a cancelation request must be submitted by midnight of the same day the e-ticket is purchased.
6. vi. If the travel includes connecting flights on multiple days and the ticket is purchased on the same day as the departure date of the first flight, then the cancelation request for the unused portion must be submitted by midnight of the departure date of the first flight.
7. vii. The 24 hours specified herehints at the gap between the exact time of booking and the time up to which the cancelation request is submitted.
8. viii. As per the terms of the Delta Airlines 24-Hour Risk-Free Cancellation Policy, passengers who have booked flight tickets using both cash and Miles will get their miles back to their SkyMiles® accounts, but receive no cash refunds.The cash paid would be converted into equivalent miles in such cases and also redeposited to their accounts.
9. ix. It is not mandatory as per the policy to process the cancelation request through the same source from where the reservations were made. Ex: If a passenger purchases his Delta ticket from a Delta ticket office, he is not required by the norms to process his cancelation request through that same office to qualify for the free-cancelation benefits. He can also submit his cancelation request online.

Delta Airlines No-Show Policy

Delta Airlines has a flexible flight change and cancelation policy that allows passengers to change or cancel their flights and get refunds without any hassle.Therefore, the airline is strict on passengers who do not change or cancel their flights before departure and do not show up for their journeys either. The key points of the Delta Airlines no-show policy are discussed below.

1. i. All Delta Airlines flight tickets lose their value the moment flights depart without the rightful ticket owners onboard. In other words, the value of Delta flight tickets becomes zero if passengers neither cancel their tickets before departure nor show up for their flights.
2. ii. In the case of connecting flights, Delta Airlines cancels all remaining flights that are a part of the itinerary if the passenger fails to show up for the first flight.
3. iii. A passenger’s entire booking amount is forfeited in the case of a no-show.

Delta Airlines Cancellation Fees

The amount Delta Airlines passengers are charged as a cancelation Fee depends on the time the cancelation requests are submitted. If the flight cancelation requests are submitted within 24 hours of ticket purchase, then the cancelation fees are waived for all fare types and ticketing classes subject to certain conditions which have been mentioned in the 24-Hour Risk-Free Cancelation policy section discussed above. If cancelation requests are submitted after 24 hours of purchase, passengers may or may not be charged cancelation fees depending on the fare types and associated terms and conditions. Delta Airlines has removed the cancelation fee from most non-refundable fares on most routes under the Delta Airlines No Cancelation Fee policy.The routes on which cancelation fees have been waived for non-refundable tickets have been mentioned in the following section while discussing the refund policy. But cancelation fees are still charged on non-refundable tickets on certain routes. And the fee could be up to $400 in case of international travel originating in the Middle East or in certain African countries. Refundable fares across ticketing classes are free from cancelation fees. However, a cancelation fee is always charged on Basic Economy tickets as they don’t come under the purview of the No Cancelation Fee policy under any circumstances. The cancelation fee on Basic Economy tickets varies between $99 and $199 depending on the route and origin of the travel. The entire Delta Airlines Cancelation Fee structure has been summarized in the following table.

The Delta Airlines Refund Policy

Delta Airlines has both refundable as well as non-refundable tickets. While cash refunds are allowed on refundable tickets under the Delta Airlines Refund policy, booking amounts are not forfeited either if passengers cancel their non-refundable tickets. The refund policy also allows reimbursements of additional travel expenses such as hotel and transportation costs under certain circumstances. All of these have been discussed in great detail in this section. For readers’ understanding, refund policies related to the non-refundable and refundable tickets have been separately discussed.

Refund of non-Refundable Tickets

1. i. Under the Delta Airlines Refund policy, even non-refundable tickets are refundable. Passengers canceling their non-refundable tickets don’t need to worry about losing their booking money.
2. ii. They can get the value of their tickets converted into eCredits after paying applicable cancelation charges which can be used for future ticket purchases.
3. iii. Passengers are not allowed to get cash refunds on non-refundable tickets except in cases where their bookings have been canceled by Delta without their knowledge or their flights have been delayed by more than 2 hours, throwing their travel plans completely out of gear.
4. iv. However, exceptions to the above rule are possible under the Delta Airlines 24-Hour Risk-free Cancelation policy where passengers are eligible for cash refunds irrespective of whether they cancel refundable or non-refundable tickets.
5. v. Cancelation charges are not deducted before a refund fromcertain non-refundable fares on certain routes. For example, Delta Main Cabin tickets are exempt from cancelation fees in case of travels within the US, to and from Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands.
6. vi. Cancelation fees are also waived for Delta Main Cabin and above tickets in case of international travels originating in the US, Canada, Caribbean Islands, Europe, some parts of Africa and India.
7. vii. Basic Economy tickets are completely non-refundable and are not considered under the purview of the Delta Airlines No Cancelation Fee policy. A variable cancelation fee between $99 and $199 is charged from passengers before encoding the value of a Basic Economy ticket into an eCredit.

Refund of Refundable Tickets

1. i. To be eligible for cash refunds under the Delta Airlines Refund policy, the ticket canceled must have been a refundable ticket purchased with cash, check or a credit card. Tickets purchased with any other form of payment would be disqualified for cash refunds even if the tickets were refundable.
2. ii. All refunds once requested are issued to the original forms of payment.

Refund of Disrupted Flight Tickets

1. i. Delta Airlines passengers whose flights have been canceled by Delta against their will or significantly delayed (By more than 2 hours from departure time) due to reasons within Delta’s control are eligible for a refund under the Delta Airlines Refund policy.
2. ii. In such cases, the first option that passengers are provided is to rebook on an alternative flight.
3. iii. The second option that is provided if passengers refuse to choose the first, is issuing of eCredits, Delta Certificates or Gift Cards with the value of the tickets encoded in them.
4. iv. If a passenger’s flight has been canceled and he isn’t satisfied with the above two options, he can request a cash refund in some cases even if he has a non-refundable ticket by filling up and submitting the Travel Disruption Form.
5. v. And if a passenger’s flight has been significantly delayed, he becomes eligible to cancel his flight free of cost and request a refund under the Delta Airlines Refund policy online through the My Trips section of the official website.
6. vi. In case of connected travels, all refunds must be claimed on unused or remaining portions of tickets.
7. vii. Passengers, who purchased their tickets from travel agencies or through 3rd party travel websites, aren’t eligible to request for a refund directly with Delta Airlines if their flights have been canceled or significantly delayed. They must process their refund requests through them.

Refund of Trip Protection Plan

Unlike other airlines, Delta offers full refunds of travel insurance premiums paid by passengers if they so request. For that, the following conditions apply,

1. i. To get full refunds of premiums paid, passengers must cancel their travel insurance plans within 15 days of purchase or as the state-specific rules specify.
2. ii. To be eligible for full a refund of the premium, passengers must cancel their trip protection plans before the original departure.
3. iii. For connected travels,there must not be any claim filed after the commencement of travel. If there is, the request for a full refund would not be entertained.

Reimbursements

Passengers who had to bear additional expenses towards hotels, transportation or meals due to significant delays in flights or sudden flight cancelations without prior information for reasons that were within Delta’s control, are allowed to request reimbursements of those expenses under the Delta Airlines Refund policy. Passengers should keep in mind the following points while submitting their reimbursement requests.

1. i. Prepaid expenses towards hotel room bookings, transportation or meals are not reimbursed as per the refund policy.
2. ii. To be eligible for reimbursements in cases of significant delays in departures, passengers must stay in hotels that are inside the cities where disruptions have been caused. Hotel expenses incurred for staying outside the city of disruption would not be reimbursed at any cost.
3. iii. If passengers select alternative transportation to reach their final destinations, then the transportation cost would not be reimbursed in such cases as per the Delta Refund policy.
4. iv. Delta Airlines would not reimburse the expenses for child and pet care.
5. v. The fees passengers pay for accessing Delta Sky Club® lounges at the airports during delays in departure or after their flights are canceled without notice are not reimbursed.

How to request a refund online for your Delta flight ticket?

Refund requests should be ideally made right after submitting the cancelation requests. This helps airlines to check passengers’ eligibility for the refunds requestedand issue applicable refunds once the cancelation process is complete. The online process of submitting a refund request is both simple and convenient. Passengers should follow the below-mentioned instructions.

1. i. Visit the homepage of the official Delta Airlines website and click on the 3rd menu on the menu bar called ‘My Trips’ right beside the logo.
2. ii. Enter your booking confirmation number and your first and last names in the dropdown and click on the white arrow inside the red circle. If you have registered yourself before on the Delta website, you can start by logging in.
3. iii. Once you click on the arrow, your trip details would be retrieved.Now, select your flight from the details and click on “Need to Cancel?”
4. iv. Next, click on “Start Flight Cancelation” and follow the prompts.
5. v. Once the details are filled up, confirm and submit your cancelation request.
6. vi. Refund requests can be made from the same “My Trips” section after submitting the cancelation requests.