How to get a flight refund from your card issuer when the airline will not pay

Checked 15 Sep 2026·10 min read

A section 75 flight refund is one of two remedies behind the words “get my money back from my card”: section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act 1974, and chargeback under your card scheme’s own rules. One is a statutory right against your credit-card issuer, enforceable in court; the other is a request your bank can decline, run to the scheme’s timetable, not the law’s. This page sets out which route your card opens, the order to use them in, and what can break a claim before you send it.

This page assumes the airline is still trading and the question is a refund, not compensation. If it has stopped flying, see airline gone bust; if it offered a voucher instead, see the UK261 or EU261 refund-or-voucher choice; if it is refusing compensation rather than a refund, see airline refused compensation; and for how a card’s own trip-delay benefit compares, see trip delay insurance.

#When can your card issuer refund a flight the airline will not?

2 card routes exist once an airline fails to refund money you are owed for a cancelled or disrupted flight: section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act 1974, and chargeback under your card scheme’s rules. Only the first is a right you can enforce against your bank. The second is a discretion the bank exercises under its own scheme’s rulebook.

Before either card route, the airline itself owes the refund. UK261 article 8(1)(a) requires reimbursement within seven days once you choose that option over re-routing after a cancellation. The card routes matter when that duty is missed: a refused, delayed or never-processed refund. Section 75 then asks whether you have a claim for misrepresentation or breach of contract; no ruling read here says an unpaid refund is one.

Section 75 makes your credit-card issuer jointly and severally liable alongside the airline for “any claim... in respect of a misrepresentation or breach of contract” — the same claim, now enforceable against a second party. Chargeback works differently. Visa’s own rulebook describes its rules as representing “a binding contract between Visa and each Member.” The Financial Ombudsman Service is blunt about what that means for you: “A bank or lender doesn’t have to raise a chargeback.” Neither rulebook gives you a right against the scheme itself.

Give the airline its seven days first, citing article 8(1)(a) and the date you chose reimbursement, before you approach your card issuer.

#Which route does your card open: section 75 or chargeback?

More than £100 and up to £30,000 is the cash-price band a credit card needs to open section 75. Below or above it, the statute stops. A debit card has one route only — chargeback, since section 187(3A) excludes current-account payments. A charge card sits with debit; the ombudsman says chargeback may still help.

Section 75 needs a debtor-creditor-supplier agreement under section 12(b) or (c) of the Act — in practice, an ordinary UK credit card paying the airline directly. It applies “notwithstanding that the debtor... exceeded the credit limit.” The threshold is the cash price the supplier put on the item, not the amount you charged, and the Financial Ombudsman Service says section 75 applies even if you paid only part of the price on the card.

“Charge card” is the Ombudsman’s own phrase, not a term the Act uses. What the statute excludes is running-account credit whose whole balance must be cleared in one payment each period of no more than three months. The Ombudsman names charge cards as outside section 75, next to debit cards. Above £30,000, section 75 stops; section 75A can take over, but only for a credit agreement earmarked to finance that one purchase, not the ordinary credit-card case.

Chargeback does not test any of this: both Visa and Mastercard apply their dispute rules to debit cards.

Source: Consumer Credit Act 1974 ss. 75, 75A, 187(3A) — legislation.gov.uk; Financial Ombudsman Service published guidance — financial-ombudsman.org.uk, checked 2026-09-20.

So a debit-card payment has one route, not two. Check your statement for which card actually paid before you contact anyone.

#How do you make a section 75 claim, and who can make it?

1 person can bring a section 75 claim: the cardholder named on the credit agreement. A travelling companion whose flight the same card paid for has no claim of their own. The Court of Appeal settled this on 25 November 2022, in a case about exactly that arrangement.

In Cooper v The Freedom Travel Group Ltd [2022] EWCA Civ 1557, the Court of Appeal held that “the word 'debtor' in section 75 has a plain and unambiguous meaning, namely the contractual debtor.” There is “nothing in section 75 which indicates an intention to extend” the claim to a third-party beneficiary of the credit. The appeal was dismissed. The decision binds courts in England and Wales.

To claim, write to your card issuer, not the airline. State the flight, what the airline was obliged to do and did not (the refund you chose under UK261 or EU261, unpaid), and the cash price the airline put on the ticket, provided that single item sits above £100 and no more than £30,000. Section 75 makes the issuer “jointly and severally liable” with the airline for the same claim, covering the whole loss — unlike chargeback, which the Financial Ombudsman Service confirms “only covers the amounts paid by card.”

Keep a copy of your UK261 or EU261 refund request alongside your section 75 flight refund letter: it is your evidence of what the airline failed to do.

#How long do you have to ask for a chargeback?

120 days is the rough chargeback window the Financial Ombudsman Service gives consumers. The card schemes' own rules explain why it is rough. Visa allows a dispute up to 120 calendar days from the transaction or the date you expected the flight, never past 540. Mastercard’s window for services not provided is also 120 calendar days.

The Financial Ombudsman Service’s own wording to consumers is hedged on purpose: “You usually have around 120 days to raise a chargeback about goods or services... Time limits might be longer or shorter depending on the circumstances.” The schemes' rulebooks are the reason. Visa requires the issuer to wait 15 days after the transaction, or after the airline’s cancellation, then submit within 120 days of the transaction or the date you expected the flight, outer limit 540 days. Mastercard lets the issuer charge back immediately, with no waiting period, once it learns the merchant will not provide the service, including because the merchant is no longer in business. Otherwise its window is 120 calendar days from the transaction, or from the date the flight was due.

Take the Ombudsman’s 120 days as a guide, not a guarantee. Ask your bank to raise the chargeback as soon as the airline refuses to pay, rather than waiting to see whether it changes its mind.

#Why can a booking through a third party break the claim?

10 October 2022 is when the High Court held, in Steiner v National Westminster Bank plc, that a payment routed to an intermediary — there, a trustee company — can break the section 75 claim. The bank’s arrangements ran with the intermediary, not the actual supplier. A supplier that is itself the card merchant sits inside the claim.

One paid through somebody else’s merchant account does not. The court said an earlier case, OFT v Lloyds TSB, is authority that “there can be arrangements between a creditor and a supplier without there being a direct contract between them,” but not that arrangements with an intermediary, plus arrangements between that intermediary and a supplier, add up to arrangements with the supplier itself. Membership of the same card network is itself “arrangements” — so an airline that is itself the card merchant is inside the arrangements section 12(b) needs; in Steiner, a trustee company sat in between instead.

Whether a booking made through an online travel agent survives this test is not settled by any judgment found. Nor did we find any authority on section 75 and a supplier based, or a transaction made, outside the United Kingdom.

If you booked directly with the airline, say so in your claim letter; if through an agent, name the agent and ask your card issuer how it treats that booking rather than assuming the claim fails.

#What if your bank says no?

8 weeks is how long your card issuer has under FCA rules to send a “final response.” If it says no, you have 6 months from that response to go to the Financial Ombudsman Service, and in any case 6 years from the event or, if later, 3 years from when you knew you had cause to complain.

The FCA Handbook sets the timeline: a firm must send a “final response” within eight weeks of the complaint (DISP 1.6.2R). The Ombudsman generally “cannot consider a complaint” referred more than six months after that response, or more than six years after the event or, if later, three years from when you became aware you had cause to complain (DISP 2.8.2R).

That FCA clock runs alongside, not instead of, the ordinary court time limit. In England and Wales, the Limitation Act 1980 gives six years to bring an action founded on simple contract. Which provision governs a section 75 claim, and when the six years starts running, is not settled by any authority we found, so no start date can be given. In Scotland, the Prescription and Limitation (Scotland) Act 1973 extinguishes the obligations listed in its Schedule 1 after five continuous years without a relevant claim, and how it applies to a section 75 claim is open; Northern Ireland’s period is not covered on this page — do not assume it matches England and Wales.

Escalate to the Financial Ombudsman Service inside six months of your bank’s final response; do not wait past that window to test whether it was right. If that fails too, small claims court is next.

General information, not legal advice. For your specific case, contact the Financial Ombudsman Service, Citizens Advice or a solicitor.

#Sources

• Consumer Credit Act 1974, sections 12, 75, 75A, 187 - legislation.gov.uk, checked 2026-09-20.
• Limitation Act 1980, section 5 - legislation.gov.uk, checked 2026-09-20.
• Prescription and Limitation (Scotland) Act 1973, section 6 - legislation.gov.uk, checked 2026-09-20.
• Cooper v The Freedom Travel Group Ltd [2022] EWCA Civ 1557 (Court of Appeal, 25 November 2022) - caselaw.nationalarchives.gov.uk, checked 2026-09-20.
• Steiner v National Westminster Bank plc [2022] EWHC 2519 (KB) (High Court, 10 October 2022) - caselaw.nationalarchives.gov.uk, checked 2026-09-20.
• Visa Core Rules and Visa Product and Service Rules, edition 18 April 2026 - usa.visa.com, checked 2026-09-20.
• Mastercard Chargeback Guide, Merchant Edition, 19 May 2026, chapter 2 — mastercard.com, read from the Internet Archive capture of 24 July 2026 - web.archive.org, checked 2026-09-20.
• Financial Ombudsman Service, goods and services bought on credit (consumer and business guidance) - financial-ombudsman.org.uk, checked 2026-09-20.
• FCA Handbook, DISP 1.6.2R and DISP 2.8.2R - handbook.fca.org.uk, checked 2026-09-20.
• Regulation (EC) No 261/2004 as it forms part of UK law, article 8 - legislation.gov.uk, checked 2026-09-15.

#FAQ