Your flight has been canceled. The line at the counter is already thirty people deep, your phone won’t stop buzzing, and the airline’s app is offering you a travel credit or a seat on a different flight.

What do you do?

Before you tap accept, take a breath. You probably have more options than the airline is putting in front of you. I’ve already written about the new DOT delay rules that take effect October 19. This is the follow-up: your refund rights, and what to do at the airport when a trip falls apart.

First, find out why your flight was disrupted

Ask the airline for the reason. Was it weather? A crew issue? Maintenance? Air traffic control? A medical emergency?

The answer decides what the airline owes you beyond a refund. Airlines commit to more help when the problem was in their control, and starting October 19, 2026, a new Department of Transportation rule takes ten events out of that column, including unscheduled maintenance and medical emergencies. So the question is worth asking out loud, and worth writing down.

If your flight is canceled, you can get your money back

A lot of travelers think they have to take whatever the airline offers: the voucher, the credit, the replacement flight. You don’t.

Under U.S. Department of Transportation rules, if an airline cancels your flight, for any reason, and you decide not to travel or not to take the credit or voucher it offers, you’re entitled to a refund. The same goes for a flight the airline significantly delays or changes. The DOT counts these as significant changes:

• You’d arrive 3 or more hours late on a domestic trip, or 6 or more hours late on an international one
• You’d depart 3 or more hours early on a domestic trip, or 6 or more hours early on an international one
• You’re now leaving from, or landing at, a different airport
• Your new itinerary has more connections than the one you booked
• You’ve been involuntarily downgraded to a lower class of service

Travelers with disabilities have two more: being routed through a different connecting airport, or being put on a substitute aircraft that’s missing an accessibility feature they need.

You don’t have to fight for the refund, either. If you booked directly with the airline and you turn down the airline’s offer, or don’t respond and don’t fly, the airline has to send the money back to your original form of payment on its own: within 7 business days if you paid by credit card, or 20 days if you paid another way.

Two catches. Once you fly the rebooked flight, the refund is off the table. And the airline can put a deadline on its rebooking offer, so if you do want that seat, say yes quickly. If you’d rather have a credit, know that it has to stay valid for at least five years, and the airline has to tell you a refund is available when it offers one.

What about meals and hotels?

This part is murkier, because a refund and the help you get while stranded are two separate things.

When the disruption is the airline’s doing, the large U.S. airlines each spell out what they’ll cover in a customer service plan. Depending on the airline, that can include:

• A meal, or a meal voucher, once you’re waiting 3 hours or more
• A hotel room when you’re stuck overnight
• Ground transportation to and from that hotel
• A seat on a partner airline at no extra cost
• Cash, travel credits, or frequent flyer miles, from some carriers

Those promises differ from airline to airline, and from one disruption to the next. The DOT’s own advice is simple: "ask airline staff if they will pay for meals or a hotel room or compensate you for your time." Do that before you put a hotel on your own card, and ask which expenses, if any, they’ll reimburse.

Keep every receipt

If you end up paying out of pocket, save everything. Hotel, meals, taxis and rideshares. The airline’s emails and texts. Screenshots of the departure board or the app showing the delay. And jot down the reason the airline gave you, in its own words if you can.

That paper trail is what gets you reimbursed, whether you’re going back to the airline or filing a travel insurance claim weeks later.

Where travel insurance comes in

This is one more reason I encourage travelers to consider travel insurance. What the airline owes you and what your policy pays are two different things.

If the airline isn’t on the hook, a good policy may still cover a qualifying trip delay or interruption. Whether yours does depends on the cause, how long you were held up, and the fine print, so read what your plan actually includes before you need it. And if you fly several times a year, an annual travel insurance plan covers every trip under one policy.

My advice when it all goes sideways

Don’t tap every button the airline sends you. Give yourself a minute with four questions first:

• Why was my flight disrupted?
• What is the airline offering?
• What am I entitled to?
• If I accept this, what am I giving up?

And keep your travel advisor’s number in your phone. The real value of an advisor rarely shows up when everything goes perfectly. It shows up when something breaks and you have someone to call who can work through the options with you. If you’d like that someone to be me, tell me where you’re headed next.