CANCELLATION
My airline gave me a voucher instead of a cash refund. Can I claim the full original cost?
In a real claim: One of the highest-volume complaint themes across the portfolio. A customer received a £600 airline voucher she could not use and claimed the full £600 from ERGO.
We can only cover costs you genuinely can’t get back. If your airline or travel provider gives you a voucher, credit note, or any other non-cash refund, we treat that as a recovery. We’ll then deduct its value from your claim. This applies even if the voucher has a short expiry date, covers destinations you can’t reach, or can’t be exchanged for cash.
When you make a claim, we’ll need evidence from your provider confirming what was or wasn’t refunded.
GOT 90 SECONDS? ✈︎
See exactly how this plays out
You’ve got the answer above. If you’d rather see it happen to someone, we turned this exact scenario into a two-minute story with a proper ending.
CHAPTER THREE · VOUCHERS & REFUNDS
The Airline Sends a Voucher
Same choice, better outcome.
Your flight to Faro was cancelled the night before departure. The airline's app pings: instead of a refund, you've been issued a £600 voucher - valid for a year, on routes you don't fly.
You paid £600 for this trip. The voucher feels like nothing. Somewhere in Sussex, a claims team is about to explain why that matters.
What do you do?
The lesson
A voucher is treated as money back the moment it's issued - not the moment you actually use it. If you want any shortfall considered, that has to be established before you claim, not argued after a decline.
You submit the claim for the full £600 - the trip cost you, and the voucher doesn't fly where you need to go, so surely it doesn't count. A few days later, an email from ERGO's claims team lands.
"Thanks for your claim. We can confirm the airline issued a £600 voucher as a non-cash refund for this trip. Under your policy, any recovery you receive from a third party - cash or otherwise - is deducted from what we can pay. As the voucher matches the full cost of your trip, we're unable to make a payment on this claim."
It doesn't matter that the voucher expires before your next trip, or that it's only valid on routes you'll never fly. On paper, £600 came back to you. That's the whole test.
There was another way through this
Checking what the voucher is genuinely worth to you - before claiming - can turn a flat decline into a partial payment for the real shortfall.
The lesson
We can only cover costs you genuinely can't get back - but that cuts both ways. Show us a voucher isn't worth its face value to you, with evidence, and the shortfall itself becomes a valid claim.
Before claiming anything, you actually read the voucher's terms. £600, yes - but it expires in eleven months, and it only covers three routes, none of which you have any plan to fly. Realistically, it's worth something to you. Just not £600.
You call the Emergency Helpline and explain exactly that, with a screenshot of the voucher's routes and expiry attached to your claim. ERGO's claims team assesses the voucher's genuine value to you - not just its face value - and works out the real shortfall between what you paid and what you can actually recover through it.
A partial payment lands a few days later, covering the difference. You still have the voucher too, in case those three routes ever line up.
What if you'd claimed the full amount instead?
Claiming for the whole £600 without questioning the voucher's real value gets it treated as a like-for-like recovery - and declined outright.