Cancel, Void, or Refund

Choose the right unwind verb — CANCEL, VOID, REFUND, or CANCEL/RETAIN — and distinguish a carrier quote from a clearly labelled stored-fare estimate before confirming.

Choose the outcome

Unwinding a booking is a two-axis decision: what happens to the flights, and what happens to the tickets. Choose the command for the intended outcome, then read the actual affected flights and documents before confirming. Airline restrictions can change that outcome:

Command	Flights after	Tickets after
`CANCEL`	Cancelled	Voided / refunded
`VOID`	Active	Voided (full refund)
`REFUND`	Active except A3/OA, which cancel the order	Refunded (may have penalty)
`CANCEL/RETAIN`	Cancelled	Tickets retained, subject to airline reuse rules

CANCEL — the full unwind: flights cancelled, tickets voided or refunded, whichever applies.
VOID — tickets voided at full value, flights left active. Only inside the void window.
REFUND — tickets refunded (a penalty may apply); A3/OA cancel the order, other supported ticket-only contracts keep flights.
CANCEL/RETAIN — flights cancelled and tickets retained, subject to airline reuse rules.

Ticketed reversals are reviewed before commitment. Unticketed holds cancel immediately. When the carrier supports a pre-commit quote, NDCTerm displays the airline's response and breakdown. Some carrier protocols cannot quote a document-only reversal; in that case the screen explicitly says estimated from the stored fare, and the carrier confirms the actual result only when you answer Y. An estimate is never labelled as an airline quote; confirm the displayed ticketed reversal before it is submitted.

CANCEL

CANCEL             # Cancel the loaded order — quote, then Y/N
CANCEL/ABC123      # Cancel a specific order by ID
CANCEL/P1          # Cancel passenger 1 only, where the carrier supports an automatic split
CANCEL/EMD/1       # Cancel a single EMD service line — the flight tickets stay

Two shapes worth knowing:

An unticketed order cancels immediately. No documents means nothing to quote — the held space is released without the quote step.
CANCEL/EMD/1 refunds one ancillary service line — a paid seat or service — leaving the itinerary and flight tickets untouched. It is a service-line refund, not a per-document void. Free items cancel directly. Per-passenger cancellation depends on the booking supporting an automatic split.

VOID

VOID               # Void the tickets on the loaded order

VOID is a safety guard as much as a command. Where a carrier quote is available, it verifies a true void — full amount back, inside the void window. Where only an estimate is possible, the display says so before confirmation and the carrier's mutation response remains authoritative. If the definitive result is a refund instead of a void, NDCTerm refuses the mismatch and directs you to REFUND. Outside the void window, VOID is the wrong verb by design.

Note what VOID leaves behind: the flights stay active. Voiding documents does not guarantee that the same order can be ticketed again. Where the booking refuses reissue, cancel the remaining space and create a fresh booking. Use CANCEL to release space.

REFUND

REFUND             # Review the refund and affected flights before confirming

Aegean and Olympic Air refunds cancel the whole order. Do not use REFUND on an A3/OA booking expecting to retain its flights. Other bookings use ticket-only refund where supported.

When the carrier can quote, the screen shows the refund per document with any penalty broken out. When it cannot, the amount is visibly labelled as a stored-fare estimate and should not be promised as final until the carrier confirms the refund.

One carrier reality to expect: a refund requested inside the void window may come back from the airline as a void. The carrier decides void-versus-refund based on its own void period, and inside it, voiding at full value is what you get. That is correct behavior, not an error — the quote states which operation the airline will perform, so read the quote header, not just the amount.

Cancel flights and retain tickets

CANCEL/RETAIN        # Cancel the loaded order's flights and retain tickets
CANCEL/RETAIN/ABC123 # Request it for a specific order

The retained tickets stay with the airline, subject to its exchange and reuse rules. Read whether the displayed value is a carrier quote or a stored-fare estimate; an estimate is not a guarantee of spendable credit. Confirm with Y, or answer N to leave the order untouched. United does not support this direct retention operation.

RETAIN serves a different purpose: preparing retained tickets for a new itinerary. See retained-ticket issuance for the workflow and current availability.

After any confirmed servicing action, verify from the order itself: retrieve it with *ABC123 and read the document states — the same discipline as issuance. To change flights rather than unwind them, see Service and Change an Order.