Most travelers don’t realize they’re sitting on unclaimed travel credits worth hundreds of dollars. When you cancel a flight or hotel reservation, don’t show up, or receive a refund due to a change in plans, that money often doesn’t come back as cash—it gets stuck as a non-transferable credit that expires, sometimes within a year. The $680 figure reflects real average amounts that travelers abandon annually through a combination of forgotten bookings, expired credits, and refunds that never get processed. Industry data suggests that between 8% and 12% of all travel credits issued go unclaimed, representing billions of dollars sitting dormant in airline and hotel accounts.
Most people assume that refunds are automatic and that credits are easy to use, but the system is deliberately complex. Airlines profit from float—the money you have in credit that they can invest while you scramble to book another trip. Hotels do the same thing, often with stricter expiration policies than airlines. The $680 average per person per year stems from a combination of small forgotten bookings ($50-$150), larger trip cancellations ($200-$400), and credits that simply expire before they’re used.
Table of Contents
- How Airline Refunds and Credits Keep Your Money Trapped
- Hotel Refunds and the Expiration Trap
- Why the $680 Average Matters
- Recent Regulatory Changes and Refund Rights
- Why You Lose Track of Credits and How the System Is Designed to Make You Forget
- Finding and Recovering Your Forgotten Credits
- What Happens to Forfeited Credits and Your Unclaimed Money Options
How Airline Refunds and Credits Keep Your Money Trapped
When you cancel a domestic airline booking, federal law does not require the airline to issue you cash. Instead, carriers like Delta, United, American, and Southwest typically issue a “travel credit” good for one year from the original booking date (not from the refund date). This credit is non-transferable—you cannot give it to a friend or family member, and you cannot sell it. You also cannot combine multiple credits into one larger booking if they’re from different ticket numbers. The airline has no obligation to remind you when your credit is about to expire. International bookings operate under different rules depending on the airline and the country of origin. European carriers, for example, are required by EU261/2004 law to issue cash refunds for cancellations, but many still issue credits first and make cash refunds difficult to claim.
Some airlines require you to affirmatively request a cash refund within a specific window (often 30 days), and if you miss it, you’re locked into a credit. Even when airlines do allow cash refunds, they sometimes issue them as non-refundable credit instead, which is a deliberate loophole they exploit. A real example: A traveler books a $450 United flight for October 2024, cancels in September, and receives a credit. That credit expires on the original booking date in October 2025. If the traveler is busy or forgets—which happens to millions of people—the credit vanishes on that date and United keeps the full $450. United isn’t required to send a reminder email or notification. The credit becomes what the airline calls “forfeited funds,” which flows directly to the airline’s bottom line.
Hotel Refunds and the Expiration Trap
Hotel refunds are even more restrictive than airline credits. Most hotel chains—Marriott, Hilton, IHG, Choice Hotels, and others—issue non-refundable reservations at a discount. If you cancel a non-refundable rate, you typically get a credit toward a future stay. These credits often expire in 6 to 12 months, much faster than airline credits. Unlike airlines, hotels don’t offer a single standardized credit system; each chain (and sometimes each hotel) has its own rules. A Marriott credit cannot be used at a Hilton, and a Hilton credit issued as a promotional certificate might expire in 90 days while a standard refund credit lasts a year. Hotel refund credits also have hidden restrictions.
A $300 credit toward a future stay might have blackout dates, minimum stay requirements, or restrictions on what rates you can apply it to. Some credits are only valid at specific properties or specific brands within a chain. A traveler who receives a $200 IHG credit might find out later that the only hotels near them that accept it are expensive resorts where the credit covers barely one night. The fine print is deep, and most people don’t read it. A limitation worth noting: If you’re staying with a hotel chain’s loyalty program, a refund credit might be issued to your account instead of as a separate certificate, which makes it even easier to forget. You don’t get a code or email reminder—the credit just sits in your account balance. A year later, if you haven’t logged into that account, you have no way of knowing the credit has expired. Hotels do not proactively notify you when credits are about to expire; you have to track the dates yourself.
Why the $680 Average Matters
The $680 figure is a composite of several types of unclaimed travel money. A single major cancellation (a $400-$500 flight for a job interview that fell through, or a $600 hotel booking for a wedding that got postponed) accounts for the bulk of it. But the average also includes people who accumulate multiple small credits: a $75 cancellation here, a $125 change fee there, a $130 refund from a hotel booking site. A traveler might have three different airline credits and two hotel credits scattered across different booking sites and accounts, never consolidating them, and therefore never using them before they expire. The $680 also reflects a calculation based on what unclaimed travel credits represent in aggregate.
Travel industry analysts estimate that billions in travel credits are issued annually in the United States alone. When you divide total unclaimed credits by the number of travelers who experience cancellations, the per-person average falls into the $600-$750 range. This includes travelers who lose a small amount (a $50 credit they forgot) and those who lose much more (a $1,500 cruise credit that wasn’t tracked properly). Some travelers lose significantly more than $680. A family of four who cancels a vacation and receives four separate credits, each for $400-$600, is sitting on $1,600-$2,400 in trapped money if they don’t rebook soon. The $680 figure should be understood as a starting point for how much money the average traveler loses to the credit system, not as the maximum anyone is at risk for.
Recent Regulatory Changes and Refund Rights
The U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) strengthened airline refund rules in 2023, requiring airlines to issue cash refunds (not just credits) for flights that the airline cancels or significantly changes. However, this rule applies only to the airline’s cancellations, not to passenger-initiated cancellations. If you cancel, you still get a credit unless the airline voluntarily offers cash. Some airlines, like Southwest, voluntarily offer a more generous refund policy, but most major carriers stick to credit-only rules for passenger cancellations. A tradeoff to understand: Requiring airlines to issue automatic cash refunds would increase ticket prices for everyone, as airlines would lose the benefit of the float and would face higher redemption rates.
The current credit system allows airlines to offer lower fares because they keep money interest-free for months or years. By restricting refunds to credits, airlines can use that capital to fund operations, pay for fuel, or invest elsewhere. The cost of that capital is embedded in the savings you see when you book; switching to automatic cash refunds would make fares more expensive. State laws and international regulations create patchwork protection. Some U.S. states have considered “unclaimed property” legislation that would require hotels and airlines to turn over forfeited credits to the state after a certain period, similar to how unclaimed bank accounts work. As of 2025, this has not passed in most states, but travelers in New York and a few other jurisdictions have slightly better protections.
Why You Lose Track of Credits and How the System Is Designed to Make You Forget
Travel credits are deliberately scattered across multiple platforms and accounts. If you book through Expedia, you don’t get a direct airline or hotel credit—you get a credit toward Expedia. If Expedia then books you on United, you might have a United credit buried in your United account, a separate Expedia credit, and potentially a credit from your credit card company if you disputed the charge. You now have to track three separate credits, each with different expiration dates, redemption rules, and blackout dates. Airlines and hotels benefit from your forgetfulness. A percentage of issued credits will never be redeemed because travelers lose the confirmation email, forget which account they used, misread the expiration date, or simply move on to other bookings. This “breakage” is counted in airlines’ revenue projections.
In their quarterly earnings reports, airlines list the “non-refundable and refundable advance ticket sales” separately; the non-refundable portion includes credits that are expected to be forfeited. The system is engineered so that a percentage of credits expire unused, and no one is penalized for it. The traveler bears the entire burden of tracking and remembering. A warning: Third-party booking sites like Kayak, Costco Travel, and Groupon sometimes issue credits that are even more restrictive than airline and hotel credits. A Groupon travel credit might have a 90-day expiration, no exceptions, and cannot be transferred or refunded. A Costco Travel credit might not combine with other discounts or promotions. These platforms are not transparent about the restrictions in real-time; you find out when you try to redeem.
Finding and Recovering Your Forgotten Credits
The first step is to locate credits you might already have. Log into every airline account you’ve ever used (or have email confirmation for), and check your account balance and reservation history. Do the same for hotel chains. Look for confirmation emails that mention refund credits or travel vouchers; they often include expiration dates in the terms and conditions, buried in small print.
If you booked through a third-party site like Expedia, Orbitz, or Kayak, log into your account there and look for credits; many third-party sites have a separate “My Trips” or “Vouchers” section. If you don’t have access to the account (you’ve forgotten the password, lost the email, or the account has been inactive for years), contact the airline or hotel’s customer service directly. You’ll need the confirmation number from the original booking and proof of your identity. Airlines are generally cooperative about locating lost credits if you can provide booking details, though the process can take 1-2 weeks. Hotels are more inconsistent; some chains will search your details if you call, while others require you to recover account access online.
What Happens to Forfeited Credits and Your Unclaimed Money Options
When a travel credit expires, the money doesn’t go back to your credit card or bank account. It becomes the property of the airline or hotel. In most states, it’s classified as forfeited revenue, not unclaimed property, so it doesn’t get reported to the state’s unclaimed property division. This is why you can’t search for forgotten travel credits in your state’s unclaimed property database—they’ve been reclassified as a business’s income and are treated differently than bank accounts or insurance settlements.
Some travelers have sued airlines and hotels over forfeited credits, arguing that they should be treated as unclaimed property and turned over to the state. These lawsuits have had mixed results. A few settlements have resulted in cash refunds to affected travelers, but the airline industry has successfully argued in most cases that a credit is a service (the right to future travel), not money, and therefore doesn’t fall under unclaimed property laws. As of 2025, you cannot recover a forfeited airline or hotel credit through your state’s unclaimed property program, even if the credit represents funds you paid.
- —