The Federal Automatic Refund Rule: What It Means When Your Flight Is Canceled or Changed

The refund goes to your original payment method within days.

What counts as "significant." The rule defines it explicitly: a delay of 3+ hours on a domestic flight or 6+ hours on an international one, a change to a different departure or arrival airport, more connections than originally booked, or a downgrade to a lower class of service. Cross that line and you're owed a refund if you decline the rebooking, regardless of why the airline made the change.

One current gap worth knowing about. As of mid-2026, DOT has paused enforcement (extended through roughly mid-2027 while a new rulemaking is pending) for one specific case: an airline renumbering your flight instead of canceling it outright. If your flight gets a new flight number but keeps close to the same schedule, the airline currently isn't required to treat that as a cancellation, even though the rule as written says it should. It's a narrow, temporary carve-out, not a repeal of the broader rule.

The takeaway: the automatic-refund right is real and still standing for genuine cancellations and significant delays. You don't need to ask for it. Just watch for the renumbering gap if your airline calls it a "flight number change" instead of a cancellation.