Geprüft von Dr. Christopher Wekel
Spezialist für Reiserecht
This page compiles all essential information about how to cancel a Lufthansa flight and receive a ticket refund. We explain Lufthansa’s current terms and additional statutory entitlements, provide practical tips for exercising those rights, and answer the following questions in-depth:
We’ll show you how Lufthansa customers can obtain at least a partial refund of over €30 per flight and person on short-haul routes and several hundred euros on longer routes on average – even when canceling bookings in the Economy Light fare category.
Additionally, we provide a walkthrough that guides Lufthansa customers step-by-step through the process of cancellation and ticket refund. Common uncertainties surrounding cancellation, refunds, and contacting the airline are addressed in a FAQ section at the end of the article.
As shown in the checklist below, a three-step process leads from canceling Lufthansa flights to a refund of at least a substantial part of the fare and at best the full ticket price, depending on the fare type.
Lufthansa tickets in the categories Economy Light, Economy Classic, and Business Saver generally do not provide for contractual refunds. Therefore, no explicit cancellation notice before departure is necessary. The statutory refund claim for taxes and fees included in the flight price under §§ 648, 812 BGB (German Civil Code) also doesn’t require explicit cancellation, but only that you don’t take the flight (more on this below).
For cheaper fare classes, it’s actually advisable not to cancel in advance. This way, you preserve the chance for a complete refund and possibly even additional flight compensation, should your flight be canceled anyway or delayed by more than five hours. And even if your flight departs on time, you can still claim back the taxes and fees afterward.
To secure your statutory refund claim for the taxes and fees included in the ticket price, it’s sufficient to not board your flight. This was even confirmed by the German Federal Court of Justice in its ruling of August 1, 2023 (Case number X ZR 118/22). You only need to request your refund afterward.
Alternatively, at this stage, you can even demand the entire ticket price and compensation under Articles 7 and 8 of the EU Air Passenger Rights Regulation if your flight is canceled at short notice and wouldn’t have taken place anyway.
As an alternative to cancellation, some booking classes offer the possibility of free or low-cost rebooking. The following applies:
We’ve compiled more detailed explanations about canceling and rebooking Lufthansa tickets in the corresponding section:
A formal cancellation is required if you have booked Lufthansa tickets in Economy or Business Flex fare and may therefore receive a (full) flight price refund. In this case, you must communicate the cancellation in a timely manner so that your contractual claim to reimbursement of the booking price does not expire.
Only the more expensive booking package Business Flex entitles you to a full refund of the travel price upon cancellation. However, Lufthansa customers must cancel their flight up to 24 hours before the start of the journey.
The Economy Flex fare also allows for the reimbursement of the travel price with formal notification of cancellation up to 24 hours before the scheduled departure – however, minus a fee.
Notification of cancellation in these fares is possible via:
If you cancel within the first 24 hours after booking, you are eligible for a refund of the full ticket price, regardless of the fare type. Apart from this exception, the following rules apply:
Only customers who have booked a Business Flex fare may receive a complete refund of the booking price from Lufthansa. The Economy Flex fare also promises a refund for cancellations at least 24 hours before departure, but only if requested within six months after the travel date and only for a fee individually specified for each booking.
Even in the Economy Light, Economy Basic, and Business Saver fares, however, at least passengers are entitled to a partial refund in the event of cancellations, even if Lufthansa does not explicitly point this out. If passengers do not take their flight, they become entitled to a partial refund of the taxes and fees included in the ticket price under sections 648, 812 BGB (German Civil Code). For a single short-distance route from a German airport, these regularly add up to over €30 per person. For flights to long-haul destinations, they often amount to several hundred euros per passenger and route.
These ancillary costs of flights are charged per passenger at the time of payment of the booking price. However, the airline only has to pay them to local tax authorities and airport operators if the customer actually embarks on the plane. If a traveler does not take the flight, Lufthansa saves this amount. The airline must therefore pay it back to the passenger undern German law to avoid retaining an unjustified advantage.
Usually, you can find the amount of taxes and fees included in the flight price in the booking confirmation or ticket invoice from Lufthansa. If respective information is missing or the amount of the claim cannot be determined beyond doubt, you can determine it by using Refund Pilot’s online calculator free of charge and incurring any without obligation:
Meanwhile, we have compiled more detailed explanations on the amount of the refund claim for canceled Lufthansa flights in the corresponding section:
Lufthansa contractually acknowledges its refund obligations only in the premium fares Economy Flex and Business Flex (Lufthansa T&Cs sec. 10.1). Here, an application within six months after the expiration of the ticket’s validity is sufficient to receive the respective amount back from the airline. On its homepage, Lufthansa even states that mere cancellation is sufficient in this case and the refund will be transferred automatically.
The enforcement of the statutory refund claim is more difficult in the cheaper Economy Light, Economy Classic, and Business Saver fares. But even here, there are uncomplicated solutions to obtain a substantial payback for your flight price:
If the passenger cancels their trip themselves or does not take it, they can request a refund on the Lufthansa website by accessing their booking under My Bookings. You will find a button to „cancel“ your Lufthansa flight here. Unfortunately, it often happens that a cancellation does not automatically lead to a refund. This is particularly the case with bookings made through intermediary online travel agencies. At the same time, after the travel date, one’s own booking is often no longer accessible via the Lufthansa website. To still get a refund of taxes and fees, it is therefore often more sensible to request this from Lufthansa by email. This is possible with our free claim letter template:
But even here, voluntary responses and refunds often do not materialize.
Our passenger portal Refund Pilot therefore offers a comfortable alternative to independent claim enforcement: We pay out the refund amounts directly for cancellations – for a commission of 17-20%. For cancellation of the outbound and return flights between Hamburg and Frankfurt for two people, this amounts to €164.93-171.12 of the flight ancillary costs of €206.16 in the ticket price.
After positive verification, we transfer the cash refund to users of our service within 1-3 days and take over the enforcement of the claim against the airline. The passenger only needs to fill out our application form. There are no hidden cost risks or fees.
More detailed explanations about the various possibilities for enforcing refund claims due to canceled Lufthansa flights can be found in the corresponding section below:
The following sections of the article deal with the individual steps for canceling a flight and the path to reimbursement of refundable portions. The amount refundable in the case of cancellation of a specific flight connection can be determined free of charge via entries in the compensation calculator.
In this section, we explain the following topics in sequence:
1. Overview on Lufthansa’s cancellation rules (see subsection 1)
2. Requirements for canceling Flex fare flights (see subsection 2)
3. Requirements for canceling Lufthansa tickets with other fares (including Economy Light and Classic) (see subsection 3)
4. Requirements for rebooking as an alternative (see subsection 4)
5. The best approach for canceling with Lufthansa (see subsection 5)
The requirements for canceling Lufthansa flights depend decisively on the booked fare. Simply put, the company’s fares are divided into two groups regarding cancellation rules and ticket refunds: expensive, flexible fares (a.) and cheap, unflexible fares (b.).
Lufthansa voluntarily refunds the full booking price only in the Business Flex fare when travelers cancel their flight. In the Economy Flex fare, you also get back the majority of your booking price according to the fare conditions. However, a certain fee is deducted.
For this, you must formally cancel – meaning you need to follow a specific procedure and meet certain deadlines.
In the other fares Economy Light, Economy Basic, and Business Saver, Lufthansa does not provide for a contractual refund. Accordingly, there is no need for formal cancellation as in the more expensive fares.
A statutory claim exists for the reimbursement of taxes and fees paid with the booking price regardless of Lufthansa’s fare conditions for any canceled booking (see more on this in the section on refund amounts). However, this statutory claim does not require an explicit cancellation in advance, but merely not boarding the respective flight.
You must always make an explicit cancellation when you want to claim more than just the statutory refund claim against Lufthansa, that is a contractual one beyond that. The latter is granted by Lufthansa on its own to its customers, so it follows the rules determined by the carrier as to when a refund is to be granted. This becomes relevant specifically in the Flex fares.
Lufthansa provides a full refund of the booking price only for these higher-priced booking classes if the passenger formally cancels their ticket. Here, the following requirements must be observed:
If the passenger has booked in the Economy Flex or Business Flex fare and cannot take their trip, they must in any case make their cancellation up to 24 hours before departure to recover the complete ticket price.
If you miss the 24-hour deadline for cancellation, you can no longer receive a full refund, but remain eligible for a partial refund: Travelers retain the statutory refund claim for taxes and fees even if they simply do not take the flight. This does not require an explicit cancellation. It can be claimed up to three years after the flight (sec. 195 German Civil Code).
Customers may assert this claim, for example, by sending a request to Lufthansa’s customer service by email. We provide a template for a respective claim letter free of charge that can be tailored to your case through our online form:
In the Economy Flex fare, a cancellation fee must also be paid. The amount varies depending on the flight route and value of the canceled booking. The exact amount is displayed when you select the cancellation button in the online booking management before you must confirm that you are bindingly requesting a ticket refund. The fee is offset against the flight price and the difference is refunded.
In most cases, the fee is such that the refunded remaining value of the flight price is still higher than the taxes and fees in the flight price to which the statutory refund claim applies. However, before final cancellation in the Flex fare, it is advisable to compare the remaining value shown in the preview of the refund amount online with the amount of taxes and fees. If the latter amount is exceptionally higher, this should be claimed instead. For example, with our free template for a claim letter.
In addition, you must choose one of the official cancellation channels Lufthansa provides if you want to exercise the contractual cancellation option. Cancellation is possible through these four pathways:
Online cancellation can be done under „My Bookings„. This is certainly usually the easiest way. After logging in with a six-digit booking code or the access data to a user account (Travel-ID), a flight booking can be canceled by clicking the cancellation button online and requesting a refund of the ticket price. Low-cost rebookings are also still possible within these fares up to the mentioned time.
You can also cancel your flight by telephone via the service hotline. This is available 24 hours a day at the following number: +49 69 86 799 799. Alternatively, you can inform Lufthansa of the cancellation by email to customer.relations@lufthansa.com. Cancellations via the chatbot or contact form are not permitted. However, the chatbot on the Lufthansa site helps with questions about the cancellation and refund process.
Please note: If you purchased your ticket through an online travel agency such as Travelstart or Opodo, it often offers its own service for cancellation (for example, via a button in the booking management menu). If this applies to you, you may also use the corresponding function to task the intermediary with canceling your Lufthansa flight. In this case, the travel agency will cancel the ticket and take care of any refund. Please note, however, that many intermediary booking platforms charge a substantial fee for this service. More specific information on the respective cancellation options and conditions for online travel agencies can usually be found in the booking confirmation or in their T&Cs. The confirmation email you receive after booking regularly contains a corresponding link.
As a rule, however, it is also possible for bookings through intermediaries like online travel agencies to edit your travel data directly via the Lufthansa site without additional service charges. Under the menu item „My Bookings -> Manage -> Edit Booking„, you can access your own booking directly with the booking code and surname and click the button to cancel. The six-digit booking code can also be found in bookings through travel portals such as Opodo or booking.com, printed in bold in the email with their booking confirmation.
When booking in the „Economy Light“ or „Economy Classic“ fare, according to our checks on March 18, 2025, the booking form on the airline’s website states that tickets are „excluded from refunds“. On the same subpage, in a tabular overview on Lufthansa’s cancellation and refund policy, „No“ is also noted for the possibility of refund in those fares. Under the terms of such cheaper fares, an explicit cancellation is therefore not necessary. This is because Lufthansa only regards an explicit cancellation as a prerequisite to claim a specific contractual refund.
Nevertheless, you still enjoy three important statutory rights regarding a refund even when canceling Economy Classic or Economy Light flights:
There is merely one exception to this principle, termed the „24-hour-rule„. It is codified in Title 14 of the Code of Federal Regulations under section 259.5(b)(4) and provides that Lufthansa must always provide a complete refund of the price if a booking is made at least one week prior to the flight and if it is canceled within 24 hours after purchasing the tickets.
While this regulation issued by the US Department of Transportation itself only applies to Lufthansa’s relationship to its American customers, our experience suggests that Lufthansa generally grants a full refund if you cancel right after the booking, even if you do not reside in the United States. After the first 24 hours elapse, however, you are no longer eligible for this refund amount in cheaper fares, unless Lufthansa itself is the one canceling the flight.
At the same time, the statutory partial refund is still very much available even then. No written notification of the cancellation of a flight to the airline is required to preserve your statutory minimum claim for refund of taxes and fees in the flight price. Here, you can already sufficiently express the cancellation by simply not showing up for boarding.
An explicit cancellation before departure can nevertheless be advantageous if you want to claim a voluntary partial refund of the booking price directly from Lufthansa at an early stage. This is because the statutory refund claim only arises after you do not take the flight, unless you explicitly cancel the booking beforehand.
At the same time, there are also good reasons not to cancel explicitly in advance in the cheaper Lufthansa fares:
It may happen that Lufthansa itself cancels your flight on short notice due to its own problems or that it is delayed by more than five hours. This comes with the chance of a higher refund. After all, in these cases, you are entitled to a complete ticket refund under Article 8 of the European Air Passenger Rights Regulation (No. 261/2004) because the flight would not have taken place on time anyway. Under certain additional conditions, there may even be an additional entitlement to flight compensation of up to €600 per person for such an incident (more on this here).
Second, even if you simply do not take the trip, your right to a refund of taxes and fees remains intact, even if your flight departs on time. The amount can be claimed, for example, after the flight by sending Lufthansa a request by email or – if you want to avoid the dispute with Lufthansa – by using Refund Pilot’s direct refund service for the ticket price.
If If a passenger needs to postpone their journey and plans to take it in the foreseeable future, changing the booking might be a better solution than canceling it.
Since July 2022, the special rebooking conditions implemented during the COVID-19 pandemic no longer apply. Instead, the once again the regulare terms of the different fares determine under which conditions you may change your booking. This means:
For all booking changes, they must be made up to 24 hours before departure, preferably via the online booking management under the menu item „My Bookings“ -> „Edit Booking„. Here you can access the flight booking to be changed by entering the email address and password of your user account (also called Travel-ID). Even without a personal account, you can access the specific booking with your last name and your six-digit booking code. For passengers without access to booking management on the internet, the alternative is to change the booking via the service hotline at +49 69 86 799 799.
To get the most ticket refund when canceling, we recommend the following approach:
A smart approach begins with clarifying your booking fare. From this, you can deduce how much refund you can demand when canceling and to what extent changing your booking is possible. In the Flex fares and in the Economy Classic booking package, you might want to consider rebooking because the option exists for free or at relatively a low cost. In the Economy Light and Business Saver fares, rebooking is excluded from the outset. Here, only canceling and claiming a refund of taxes and fees remains possible – unless you wait it out first and end up lucky because Lufthansa cancels your flight anyways (more on that in a minute).
Besides, even if rebooking is permissible and you are interested in principle, you should first check what surcharge Lufthansa demands for a change. This is because even in booking classes with free rebooking options, you must pay the price difference if the newer flights are more expensive than the original ones. Especially when changing a booking shortly before a new flight, the price difference is often tremendous. At the same time, since Lufthansa is engaging in dynamic pricing, it might be cheaper to open a new booking, cancel the old flights and at least recover taxes and fees from the original ticket price.
If rebooking is excluded from the outset or unattractive in terms of price, the next step towards a ticket refund follows:
If you’re certain that rebooking is not an alternative to cancellation, you should briefly clarify first, when and how you cancel your Lufthansa flight. This is ultimately determined by your booking fare.
In the Flex fares, you should formally cancel – and urgently do so 24 hours before departure to secure the full refund. The easiest way is to access your booking online on the Lufthansa website with your booking code and use the cancellation button.
In the cheaper fares like Economy Light and Economy Classic, it is more beneficial not to cancel in advance but to wait for the flight day and simply not board. This is because in these fares, only the statutory refund claim for taxes and fees in the flight price exists anyway. This claim arises even without explicit prior cancellation if you simply don’t take the flight. This was even confirmed by the German Federal Court of Justice in its ruling dated August 1, 2023, X ZR 118/22.
At the same time, waiting offers the chance that Lufthansa might cancel the flight at short notice or that it is delayed by more than five hours. In these cases, Article 8 of the Air Passenger Rights Regulation grants the right to a full fare refund – even in cases of extraordinary circumstances. Because even if you didn’t want to fly yourself, the airline would not have sufficiently fulfilled its obligation to transport in this case. Additionally, a flight cancellation even opens up the possibility of flight compensation, which the airline owes under certain conditions in addition to the ticket refund.
In the Flex fares, Lufthansa refunds usually happen automatically after the online cancellation, as long as you cancel 24 hours prior to the scheduled departure. The same applies if you cancel on short-notice within 24 hours of your booking, regardless of the fare you have chosen.
Afterwards, in all fares other than the Flex-type, you remain only eligible for a refund of taxes and fees and you will have to actively request it – for example, by email. Our free claim letter template can help with the right wording. If Lufthansa does not respond or if you want to avoid going through the dispute with the airline yourself, you can alternatively apply for a direct refund from Refund Pilot. This takes a few minutes, and you’ll receive 80% of the taxes and fees paid out within a few days:
Alternatively, if you are lucky and the flight is canceled or severely delayed at short notice anyway, you can apply for the full ticket refund through a special Lufthansa online form. It’s also worth checking whether you’re additionally entitled to flight compensation. This right exists alongside the claim for ticket refund and serves to compensate for the inconvenience associated with the flight cancellation. You can easily determine whether you are also entitled to flight compensation using our free compensation calculator:
In this section, we explain the refund amount you are entitled to when canceling your Lufthansa flight. Depending on your cancellation’s circumstances, you may be eligible for a
1. contractual refund (for Flex fare tickets).
2. statutory refund (for cheaper types of fares).
3. refund as a gesture of goodwill (in special cases such as illness).
We cover each of these kinds of refunds in a separate subsection below.
If you cancel a flight for personal reasons rather than Lufthansa canceling it, the airline still offers complete or at least substantial refunds for Flex fare tickets. However, this always requires meeting the formal cancellation requirements.
Only the Business Flex fare allows for a full refund without deductions.
The Economy Flex fare still permits a refund but with a moderate fee. Lufthansa structures these fees variably, depending on the booked routes and ticket price. The fees are often €70 per flight on short-haul routes and €200 on long-haul routes.
Lufthansa displays the exact values in the booking interface when you order flight tickets and select your preferred fare:
To view the specific amount later, you need to access your booking online (under „My Bookings„). When you click the cancellation button, the website preview of the requested refund will show you the exact fee Lufthansa will deduct.
All other booking classes of Lufthansa do not allow for receiving the full booking price back. However, under German law you still reserve a statutory right to claim a refund of all taxes and fees included in your flight price:
Regardless of your fare type, you maintain the legally established and court-enforceable right to a refund of taxes and fees included in your ticket price (under Sections 812 and 648 of the German Civil Code).
This should not be confused with compensation claims for flight delays against Lufthansa or other passenger rights under the European Air Passenger Rights Regulation. Moreover, it is important to note that German law applies to most bookings with Lufthansa, as it is a German company and contracts with a European air carrier are by default governed by its national law (see Article 5 sec. 2 sentence 2 Rome I Regulation).
As part of material German law, the German Civil Code stipulates the entitlement to a refund of unused taxes and fees in cases of cancellation as a separate passenger right. The provision addresses the fact that an airline only needs to pay these charges for passengers who actually take their flight. Conversely, sections 648 sentence 2 and 812 paragraph 1 of the German Civil Code establish the obligation to return these saved costs to the passenger. Otherwise, Lufthansa would be unjustly enriched.
Refundable items include the government air travel tax, aviation security fees, airport fees, and handling charges at the departure airport. In total, these items very often add up to more than €30 per person for a single flight route from Germany to a destination in Europe already. For intercontinental flights, the total often amounts to several hundred euros per passenger.
Specifically, the following components count as refundable expenses under Section 648 sentence 2 of the German Civil Code:
The exact amount of the refund claim against Lufthansa in case of cancellation can be quickly determined from your booking confirmation. Next to or before the total price of the flight, it usually lists which portion is attributable to taxes and fees. This breakdown typically looks something like this and is usually found on page 2 of a Lufthansa booking confirmation:
In the example displayed above, there would be a statutory claim for a refund of €206.16 after cancellation, regardless of the booking class.
If such information is exceptionally missing or incompletely listed in the booking confirmation, Refund Pilot’s free online calculator can help. Our refund calculator is particularly useful when you’ve booked multiple flights and the booking confirmation only shows the sum of taxes and fees for all flight routes, while you only want to cancel one segment and wish to know the partial value for that segment.
From the data of the canceled flight route entered in the online calculator, you can automatically determine the proportional refund amount that you’re legally entitled to as a Lufthansa customer:
Using the online calculator is free and does not obligate you to later engage our passenger rights portal. It also doesn’t require you to provide your contact details to calculate the refund amount.
Beyond statutory and contractual refund regulations for cancellations, you might consider goodwill options for obtaining a refund. Here, Lufthansa distinguishes based on when a traveler becomes seriously ill:
If a traveler or a close relative becomes ill or dies before departure, Lufthansa does not provide any relaxation of the fare-dependent cancellation and rebooking conditions. The same rebooking fees apply as would otherwise, and the airline does not offer higher refund amounts than normal. Thus, even in the event of a personal tragedy shortly before departure, passengers are usually left with only the statutory claim for partial refund of taxes and fees, which always exists when a flight is not taken.
Lufthansa used to permit exceptions to these regulations in cases of illness or death after the journey has begun under its old terms and conditions 3.2.3 and 3.2.4. These provisions have been removed, however, as of March 18, 2025.
It may be conceivable, though, that Lufthansa still adheres to the underlying principle as a mere gesture of goodwill without legal obligation: If a passenger becomes so seriously ill at their destination that they and their close travel companions cannot take the return flight as planned, Lufthansa may extend the validity of the flight tickets upon presentation of a medical certificate. These tickets could then be used for another return flight for as long as the passenger’s fitness to travel is medically attested or until the airline can subsequently provide a return flight. If the affected passenger’s unused portion of the ticket includes a stopover, their ticket and those of their travel companions may even be extended by up to three months to enable the passenger to take their return flight.
If a passenger dies at their destination, the airline may allow immediate family members traveling with them to take an earlier return flight if needed or extend the validity of their tickets by a maximum of 45 days after the date of death. The minimum requirement will be the presentation of a valid death certificate, as this was necessary even when Lufthansa legally guaranteed the respective measures before scrapping them from its terms and conditions.
After determining the refundable portion of the ticket price, you may ask how to recover that amount from the airline quickly, with minimal risk, and reasonable effort. To accomplish this, most travelers choose from the following three approaches:
We will discuss all three options in sequence. But first, let us compare their key features in a short overview:
A passenger can first contact the airline directly to claim their ticket refund. How comfortable and easy this independent enforcement process is depends on the point in time and the type of fare for which a traveler is requesting a ticket refund:
The easiest way to get a refund is through the Lufthansa website. Passengers can even find a template for a refund application there. However, it only applies to cases where Lufthansa cancels flights or if flights are delayed by more than five hours and the passenger chooses not to travel. In such cases, you are already entitled full ticket refund under Article 8 of the Air Passenger Rights Regulation, regardless of your fare.
Alternatively, if you cancel within the 24 hours after booking, you may also obtain a full refund through Lufthansa’s website. Customer experiences show that the airline automatically refunds the complete ticket price in every fare, if you are quick enough to cancel your Lufthansa flights this early. To do so, head to its website, open your booking here and hit the „cancel“ button.
At a later stage, a smooth online refund only remains an option if you have booked your tickets in one of the Flex fares. In case you cancel your flight yourself and want to request a refund afterward, first access the login area to manage your flight. You can log in using the six-digit booking code or, if you have a user account or Travel ID, with your email address and password. Customers with Economy Flex and Business Flex fares can request a refund directly along with the cancellation.
Lufthansa promises on its homepage to immediately transfer the refundable amount to passengers after they cancel. From our experience, this actually works flawlessly in the more expensive fare classes – as long as you meet the deadline and other requirements for formal cancellation (more on this above).
t’s more complicated to get a refund of flight-related costs in cheaper fares like Economy Classic. This difficulty begins with Lufthansa restricting access to booking management after the travel date, making it impossible to request a refund online.
In this case, we recommend sending a claim letter to the airline for the refund of taxes and fees – for example, by email to customer.relations@lufthansa.com. You can use our free letter template as a drafting aid.
Sending a payment request by email appears particularly advisable in the cheaper booking fares because Lufthansa does not request an explicit cancellation here. From our review, the airline does not maintain special communication channels through which taxes and fees can be requested „at the push of a button.“ This impression is also conveyed by Section 10.3 of the Lufthansa Terms and Conditions, which only mentions refunds already provided for in the booking fares, but not statutory ones.
According to the airline, as soon as the passenger submits a refund application within the specified six-month deadline, a refund of taxes and fees will be processed immediately after review. In reality, however, the process proves less straightforward. In our experience, it also happens that Lufthansa does not respond for weeks or months. In such cases, only legal proceedings remain to enforce the claim, should the airline let it come to that.
Additional difficulties arise when trying to claim a refund independently if you booked flights through a booking portal, such as Opodo, booking.com, Trip.com, or Travelstart. The problem in such cases stems from the fact that Lufthansa initially only makes its refund to the intermediary portal. At the same time, most intermediary portals do not maintain the capacity to forward these amounts to customers. Instead, users of our service often report being sent back and forth between the airline and the respective booking portal, each claiming the other is responsible for the refund. This delays the forwarding of refund amounts by intermediary portals to customers, sometimes by months, and sometimes it fails completely.
Nevertheless, every traveler remains free to independently contact Lufthansa and assert their claim, if necessary in legal proceedings before the competent local court. Affected individuals can file a lawsuit there without legal representation, as the booking price and thus the amount in dispute is almost always below the threshold of €5,000 (Section 23 No. 1 of the German Courts Constitution Act; Sections 78 paragraph 1, 79 paragraph 1 of the German Code of Civil Procedure). However, even without legal assistance, passengers face a cost risk of several hundred euros. The court cost advance of at least €114 must initially be paid by the plaintiff (Section 12 paragraph 1 of the German Court Fees Act). Only if they win the legal dispute will they receive the full amount back. If they lose against the airline, however, they will bear the full court costs as well as the opposing party’s attorney fees.
Accordingly, the passenger assumes a certain financial risk from the moment Lufthansa refuses payment and allows it to come to a legal dispute. If the refund application to the airline is unsuccessful, affected individuals should therefore seek another option for legal action rather than suing on their own. Of course, this may be different if the Lufthansa customer has a legal background.
Seeking legal assistance initially provides relief for the passenger because they no longer have to face the airline and its lawyers alone with their claim. However, the financial risk they incur increases further by engaging a law firm. Now the costs for their own lawyer are added, which will also only be covered by the opposing party if the passenger prevails in court against Lufthansa (section 91 paragraph 2 of the ZPO (German Code of Civil Procedure)).
However, there is one relevant exception: If the passenger has taken out a legal expenses insurance it might cover the procedural costs. Yet, depending on the insurance policy, the policyholder may still have to pay a deductible. Besides, a legal expenses insurance usually only reimburses litigation costs upon prior coverage approval. The latter must be obtained before your own lawyer can take action. This intermediate step causes an additional delay.
The two possibilities for claim enforcement described so far burden Lufthansa customers with both a significant cost risk and a considerable investment of time and effort. Throughout this process, it remains unclear until the very end whether they will receive the refund to the full extent they are entitled to.
Refund Pilot eliminates this problem. With our ticket refund service, we provide a comfortable and direct way for canceling travelers to get a refund of their booking price if they don’t want to deal with the airline themselves.
A Lufthansa customer only needs to fill out our online form, which collects all relevant data about your case and automatically checks your claim. This takes just a few minutes. Within a few days after we confirm your application, we pay out a direct refund in the amount you are entitled to, minus a reasonable service fee of 17-20%. Thereafter, we are responsible for enforcing the claim against Lufthansa, while the passenger receives 80-83% of the refund they are eligible for immediately, and is freed from any further risk and effort.
Would you like to cancel Lufthansa flights or did you miss your flight and now want to claim your refund from the airline? Then use our practical claim letter generator, which we provide below. This free tool allows you to customize a professional letter for your case in just a few minutes to reclaim your flight costs from Lufthansa.
The procedure is simple: Enter your relevant flight data in the fields provided below. If you are unsure about the exact amount of refundable taxes and fees, our refund calculator will help you determine this for free.
When using the service, you have two options: If you choose to enter all information completely, we will create a customized document perfectly tailored to your flight booking. We will automatically send this draft to your email inbox immediately after form submission. Alternatively, if you prefer, you can leave the fields blank. In this case, you will receive a blank template from us in which you can enter your personal details yourself before forwarding it to Lufthansa. Additionally, in our email, we will provide you with the correct contact address to which your refund application should be directed at Lufthansa.
In this section, we provide compact answers to the most frequently asked questions about cancellation and ticket refunds with Lufthansa:
Log in on Lufthansa’s website under „My Bookings“ -> „Manage Bookings“ using your booking code. For Flex fares, select „Cancel“ and follow the refund process. For cheaper fares, you’re entitled to taxes and fees refunds only. More details on cancellation.
Only Business Flex fares qualify for full refunds. Economy Flex fares incur moderate fees (typically €70 for short-haul, €200 for long-haul). All other fares are eligible for tax and fee refunds only. Learn about refundable amounts.
Free changes are only available with Business Flex fares. Economy Flex allows changes with a fee. Other fares typically charge significant rebooking fees, often making a new booking more economical. See rebooking options.
Visit Lufthansa’s website, access „My Bookings“ -> „Manage Bookings“ with your booking code, select your flight, and hit the „Cancel“ button. Follow the instructions to complete the cancellation and request any applicable refund. Detailed process.
Yes, but timing impacts your refund. Most fares must be canceled at least 24 hours before departure to receive any refund beyond taxes and fees. Business Flex offers more flexibility. Check requirements.
You can technically cancel by simply not showing up for boarding, but for refund eligibility (beyond taxes and fees), most fares require cancellation at least 24 hours before departure. See cancellation deadlines.
Yes, Lufthansa offers a 24-hour cancellation policy for flights departing from the United States, allowing full refunds if canceled within 24 hours of booking, regardless of fare type. In practice this applies to flights from other countries as well. See information on Lufthansa refund policy.
Yes, all Lufthansa flights can be canceled, but refund conditions vary by fare. Flex fares offer the most generous refund terms, while cheaper fares entitle you to taxes and fees only. See refund policies.
For flights departing from the US, Lufthansa allows full refunds if canceled within 24 hours of booking, regardless of fare type (US DOT regulation). For later cancellations, standard fare conditions apply.
For Flex fares, no specific reason is required for a refund. Likewise, all passengers are entitled to the statutory refund of taxes and fees without a specific reason. Illness doesn’t typically qualify for special treatment. See more information on refund options.
Laura Held prepared the above overview of flight cancellations with Lufthansa on March 18, 2025. Laura studied Business Administration in Hamburg, obtained her Master’s degree in 2020, and joined the Refund Pilot team in March 2021. She occasionally supports our passenger rights portal’s web editorial team by preparing travel-related topics such as the cancellation conditions of various airlines.
Christopher Wekel, a German lawyer working for a law firm based in Hamburg, reviewed the article for legal accuracy.