At a glance
- The situation
- An online agency receives a cancellation well before departure and submits the refund to the airline.
- What goes wrong
- For weeks nobody can say where the money is, and when it arrives it is far below the fare with no breakdown, so the customer disputes the payment.
- What changes
- The platform tracks the refund through requested, airline/BSP and paid stages and issues an itemised statement, so staff and customer see the same facts.
An illustrative scenario: an online agency processes an airline refund, the money is held until the airline settles, and the customer receives a reduced amount with no explanation. With a refund tracker and an itemised refund statement, every stage and every deduction is visible to staff and customer.
The scenario
Consider an online agency selling flights to leisure travellers. A customer cancels a long-haul return well ahead of departure and asks for a refund. The agent submits the refund to the airline through the GDS and replies that it is "in process". Nothing else is written down.
Weeks pass. The customer emails the agency, which answers that it cannot pay until the airline settles. The customer calls the airline, which answers that refunds for agency tickets go back through the agent. Each side is technically right, and the customer is still left with nothing to look at. Every call lands on a different agent, who has to find the email thread before answering.
When the money finally arrives it is a fraction of the fare. The credit shows one line with one amount. Nothing explains the airline's cancellation penalty, the taxes that were not refundable or the agency's own service fee. Earlier, the customer had been offered travel credit instead of cash and declined it — but nothing on record shows that choice was offered, let alone declined.
The customer disputes the card payment and sends a formal complaint. The agency wins neither quickly: it has to reconstruct the refund from the GDS history, a BSP report and three email threads, and it still cannot show that the credit option was declined rather than imposed.
Why it is hard to fix
The money moves through several parties
Airline, settlement plan and agency each hold the refund for part of its journey, and the customer can see none of them.
Deductions come from different places
Airline penalties, non-refundable taxes and the seller's service fee are calculated separately and rarely shown together.
Credit and cash choices go unrecorded
If the customer's choice between a refund and travel credit is not logged, it cannot be shown later.
Status lives in people's inboxes
With no shared record, every "where is my money?" call is answered from scratch by whoever picks it up.
What changes with the platform
The Innovate Solution platform tracks every refund as a record with a status — requested, with the airline or BSP, and paid — attached to the booking. Staff answer "where is my money?" from one screen, and the customer can be told which stage the refund has reached rather than that it is "in process".
Refunds start from the booking with the platform's one-click refund on GDS tickets, which keeps the ticket status and the record in step. If the agency's policy allows travel credit, the choice offered and the customer's answer are recorded on the same refund record.
When the settlement arrives, the platform produces an itemised refund statement: the fare paid, the airline penalty, the non-refundable taxes, the service fee and the net amount returned, each on its own line. The refund is then reconciled against the BSP billing in travoBooks, so finance sees the same figures the customer does.
How it works, step by step
-
The customer asks for a refund
A refund record is opened from the booking and marked as requested, with the fare rules and the refund-or-credit choice captured.
-
The refund is submitted to the airline
One-click refund processes the ticket; the record moves to the airline/BSP stage, so staff can see it is waiting on settlement rather than on the agency.
-
The customer is kept informed
Staff can message the customer through the agency's channels when the stage changes, so the customer does not need to call to learn that the refund is with the airline.
-
Settlement arrives
The refund appears in the BSP billing; the record moves to paid, with the amounts received from the airline attached.
-
The customer receives a statement
An itemised refund statement shows the fare, each deduction and the net amount refunded, and is sent with the payment.
-
Finance reconciles
The refund is matched against the BSP period in travoBooks, so the customer statement, the airline settlement and the ledger agree.
Before and after
| Before | With the platform |
|---|---|
| "Your refund is in process" is the only answer anyone can give | Staff can see and tell the customer which stage the refund has reached |
| The customer receives a reduced amount with no explanation | An itemised statement shows each deduction and the net refund |
| Refund status lives in emails and airline portals | Refund status lives on the booking, in one tracker |
| Whether credit was offered or declined is anyone's guess | The offer and the customer's choice are on the refund record |
| Disputes are argued from memory | Disputes are answered from the refund record, the statement and the BSP reconciliation |
What it does not do
- It cannot make an airline or a settlement plan refund faster; it makes the wait visible and removes the agency's own delays.
- It does not change fare rules: what is refundable is decided by the airline's conditions.
- Whether to offer travel credit, and on what terms, remains the agency's policy and must follow local consumer law.
Questions about this scenario
What should the agency have shown the customer in this scenario?
The stage the refund had reached — requested, with the airline or BSP, or paid — and, at the end, a statement listing the fare, each deduction and the net refund.
Would a refund tracker have avoided the chargeback?
It removes the main trigger: a customer who can see that a refund is with the airline, and later why the amount is what it is, has far less reason to dispute the payment.
How does the scenario handle the credit-or-cash question?
The customer's choice is part of the refund record. Whether credit is offered at all is the agency's policy; the point is that the choice is recorded, not assumed.
Where does the itemised statement get its figures?
From the refund processed on the ticket and the settlement received from the airline, so the statement matches what the agency actually got back and what it reconciles in the BSP period.
Related
About this page. This is an illustrative scenario: the business is hypothetical and the story is drawn from problems that travellers and travel agents describe in public forum discussions. It contains no customer names and no performance figures. The problem itself is explained on Airline refund management; for measured results from named customers, see the case studies.
Recognise this situation? We will walk through it on the platform with your own bookings. The full explanation of the problem — causes, approach and limits — is on Airline refund management.
