Retrieve the current order via OrderRetrieve to confirm ticket status is not already voided or refunded before proceeding.
Submit OrderCancel with the order reference and, if doing a partial cancel, specify the travellers or segments to cancel; include a refund indicator to trigger automatic refund calculation.
Parse the OrderCancelRS: inspect the RefundQuote element for the breakdown of base fare refund, tax refund (itemized by tax code), and any cancellation penalty amounts.
If the cancellation is within the airline's void window (typically same-day of ticketing), the penalty is zero and the full amount is refunded; otherwise penalty fees per the fare rules apply.
Confirm the refund destination from the FOP (form of payment) in the response — credit card refunds follow card network timelines, while future travel credits are issued as separate EMD-S documents.
Log the OrderCancelRS refund amounts against the original charge for reconciliation; if the refund amount does not match expectations, inspect CAT16 penalties before escalating.
Known gotchas
Some airlines return a successful OrderCancelRS but defer the actual refund processing — poll OrderRetrieve until the ticket coupon status shows R (refunded) before telling the customer the refund is confirmed.
Partial cancellations on multi-passenger orders may require a different OrderCancel structure per airline — some require one request per traveller, others accept an array.
Cancellation penalties are applied per-coupon; a round-trip with two coupons may incur double the per-coupon fee listed in the fare rules.
Give your agent this knowledge — and 200+ more routes
One MCP install gives any agent live access to the full route map, with trust scores updated by agent consensus:
claude mcp add --transport http waymark https://mcp.waymark.network/mcp