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Airlines hold an enormous amount of money in unused travel credit, and a meaningful share of it is never spent. Not because people forget it exists — because the rules around using it are awkward enough that redeeming it feels like a chore, and then one day it is gone.
Know which of the three things you actually have
People use "credit" for products that behave completely differently, and the difference determines what you can do with it.
A cash refund you were owed but accepted as credit. The worst trade in travel. If a flight was cancelled or significantly changed, you were frequently entitled to money back — and voucher acceptance is sometimes treated as settling that entitlement. If this is recent, it may be worth asking whether the cash option is still open.
An unused ticket. The value of a flight you did not take, held against your name. Usually the most restrictive: often same passenger only, often must be rebooked and sometimes flown within twelve months of the original booking date rather than the cancellation date — which quietly shortens the window more than people expect.
A voucher or eCredit. Generally more flexible, sometimes transferable, and usually with a clearer expiry.
Find out which you hold before planning anything around it.
It is frequently twelve months from the ORIGINAL booking date, not from when the trip was cancelled. People lose credit because they counted from the wrong day.
Find it before you can spend it
Log into the airline account and look under a heading like "credits", "wallet", "my vouchers" or "unused tickets". If nothing appears, search your email for the original confirmation number — credit is often held against the ticket number rather than surfaced in the account, particularly on older cancellations.
If it was booked through a third party, the credit usually sits with them and not with the airline, which is a genuinely common reason people conclude they have none.
The rules that catch people
Name restrictions. Many credits are usable only by the original passenger. Some allow travel companions on the same booking. Very few are freely transferable.
Book-by versus travel-by. Read which one applies. "Book by December" and "travel by December" are wildly different constraints.
Partial use. Some airlines forfeit the remainder if you spend less than the full value. Others issue a new credit for the balance. This one is worth checking before you book something cheap with a large credit.
Fare rules still apply. A credit does not make a restricted fare flexible.
Fees are often not covered. Bags and seat selection may still need a card.
How to get real value out of it
Do not let the credit choose the trip. This is the trap. People book a flight they did not want, at a price they would not have paid, because "it was free" — and end up spending real money on accommodation and time on a trip they were lukewarm about. Credit is only worth what you would have spent anyway.
Spend it on the expensive leg. If you have credit and a choice, put it against the long-haul rather than the cheap hop. Same credit, several times the value.
Book something far out and cancellable. If the deadline is approaching and you have no firm plan, book a refundable-into-credit fare on a plausible route far in the future. On many airlines this resets or extends the clock, converting a hard deadline into a soft one. Check the specific rules before relying on it.
Use it on a positioning flight. A cheap leg to a hub with better long-haul fares is exactly the kind of purchase you would begrudge paying cash for.
If it has already expired
Ask anyway. Airlines have extended expired credit more often than their published policy suggests, particularly for members with status or where the original cancellation was the airline's doing. A short, factual, unemotional message to customer service costs nothing and works more often than people assume.
Ask once, politely, with the ticket number and the original cancellation reason. If the answer is no, it is no.
The habit that prevents all of this
The moment any credit is issued, put two things in your calendar: a reminder three months before expiry, and one three weeks before. Write the ticket number, the exact expiry date, and whether it is book-by or travel-by in the event itself.
That is the entire fix. The reason unused credit is such a reliable source of profit for airlines is not that the rules are unfair — it is that nobody sets a reminder.
The bottom line
Work out which of the three things you hold, find the real expiry and whether it is book-by or travel-by, and never accept credit when cash was an option. Then spend it on a trip you were going to take anyway, on the most expensive leg available — and put the deadline in your calendar the day it is issued.
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