Ticket refund
Usually concerns the ticket price or an unused part of the journey.
Airdelay Help Guide
Flight Delay & Cancellation Expenses
What can happen with meals, hotel accommodation and necessary transport when your flight is delayed or cancelled?
Care and reasonable passenger-paid expenses are separate from ticket refunds and fixed compensation.
Flight delay and cancellation expenses
The essential distinction before you spend or submit a request.
Meals, hotel accommodation, necessary transport and other reasonable disruption expenses are separate from a ticket refund and from fixed flight compensation.
Depending on the passenger-rights rules that apply to your journey and the circumstances of the disruption, an airline may have duties to provide care while you wait. If required care is not provided and you reasonably have to pay for it yourself, reimbursement of necessary expenses may be possible. Keep detailed receipts and evidence of what the airline offered or failed to provide.
Four different issues
Do not treat refund, compensation, care and passenger-paid expenses as one entitlement.
Compensation
A separate payment that may be available when the legal conditions for a qualifying disruption are met.
Care & assistance
Can include meals, refreshments, hotel accommodation and airport–accommodation transport.
Passenger-paid expenses
Necessary and reasonable costs may need separate consideration when required care was not provided.
When can care be required?
Care rights and compensation eligibility answer different questions.
Care rights depend on the rules covering the flight, the type and length of the disruption and the passenger's circumstances. A disruption can raise care obligations even when fixed compensation is unavailable.
Meals, hotel and necessary transport
Three common forms of care during a qualifying disruption.
Meals & refreshments
Where applicable rules require care, reasonable meals and refreshments may need to be provided in relation to the waiting time. If you must buy them yourself, keep itemised receipts.
Hotel accommodation
If an overnight stay becomes necessary and care is required, hotel accommodation may need to be provided. If you book it yourself, choose a reasonable option and keep the invoice.
Airport transport
Necessary transport between the airport and required accommodation may also be covered. Keep receipts and note why the journey was required.
If you paid the expenses yourself
Evidence matters when you ask the airline to reimburse necessary costs.
If the airline should have provided care but did not do so, you may be able to request reimbursement for reasonable and necessary costs you had to pay yourself. This is not the same as claiming fixed compensation.
Evidence to keep
Itemised receipts and invoices
Booking confirmations and boarding passes
Delay or cancellation notices
Screenshots showing what assistance was offered
A short record of why each expense became necessary
Our documents and evidence guide explains what records are useful to preserve.
What counts as reasonable and necessary?
Necessity and proportionality are important when an expense is reviewed.
There is no safe rule that makes every expense reimbursable. A practical test is whether the cost was genuinely needed because of the disruption and proportionate to the situation. Luxury upgrades, avoidable purchases or unusually high costs may be disputed.
Extraordinary circumstances and care
An event affecting compensation does not automatically answer the care question.
Events outside an airline's control can affect entitlement to fixed compensation, but passengers should not automatically assume that all care or assistance rights disappear.
See our guide to extraordinary circumstances.
How to request reimbursement
Keep the request structured so each cost can be understood and evidenced.
Identify the disrupted flight and explain what happened.
Separate expense reimbursement from ticket refund or compensation.
List each necessary expense and attach its receipt or invoice.
Explain why the expense was necessary and what alternative was offered.
Keep copies of your request and the airline's response.
Common questions
Quick answers to common expense questions after disruption.
Can I claim hotel costs after a cancelled flight?
Possibly. If an overnight stay became necessary and applicable passenger-rights rules required care, hotel accommodation may be relevant. Reasonableness, necessity and evidence matter.
Can I claim meal costs after a long delay?
Possibly. Where care is required and suitable meals or refreshments are not provided, reasonable passenger-paid costs may be considered.
Are taxi costs reimbursable?
They can be relevant when necessary airport–accommodation transport forms part of the applicable care obligation.
Can I receive compensation as well as expense reimbursement?
Potentially, because they are separate issues. Read refund vs compensation.
Related guides
Continue with the part of your disruption that you need to resolve next.
Keep the evidence before you claim
Save your receipts, record what assistance the airline offered and identify which passenger-rights regime covers your journey.
Check your flight claim →
