Most people only think about their rights as a ticket buyer when something has gone wrong: the event is cancelled, the date moves, the headline act pulls out, or a resold ticket is refused at the door. By then you are reading a refund policy and trying to work out which parts are the law and which parts are the company being generous. This guide sets out the UK framework in plain English, tells you what to do in each situation, and says what happens on tickts specifically.
Who you actually bought from
On tickts the seller is the organiser. Your payment goes straight to the organiser's own Stripe or PayPal account, your contract is with them, and it is the organiser who refunds you. tickts is the platform the sale ran through. That matters for every step below: the organiser is the person to write to first, and tickts' role is to make the refund happen quickly when they agree to it.
Cancelled, postponed and changed are three different things
Cancelled. The event is not happening. You are entitled to your money back. The face value is owed under ordinary contract law; booking fees are a matter of the seller's policy, which is one reason tickts does not charge any. On tickts, when an organiser cancels an event, every ticket is refunded in full, and the money goes back to the card you paid with, usually within five to ten working days.
Postponed. The event moves to a new date. Your ticket is valid for the new date, and on tickts you are emailed the change and your phone-wallet pass updates on its own. You are not automatically owed a refund because the date changed, but you have a strong claim to one if the new date is one you cannot reasonably attend or the change is material. Most organisers offer a refund window after announcing a new date, and a good refund policy says so up front.
Changed. Same date, but the venue, the line-up or the running time is no longer what you paid for. The test is whether a reasonable person would have bought the same ticket had the change been disclosed at the time. A support act dropping out is not material; the headliner is.
There is no cooling-off period on tickets
The 14-day right to cancel an online purchase does not apply to leisure events on a specific date; the Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013 exclude them. Changing your mind is not a legal ground for a refund. Whether you get one is down to the organiser's policy, which on tickts is shown on the event page before you buy, and to the organiser's discretion. If you cannot go, the practical route is usually a transfer: where the organiser allows it, you can pass the ticket to someone else from your tickts account, they get a new code, and yours is voided.
How you paid changes your options
| You paid by | Extra protection |
|---|---|
| Credit card, ticket over £100 | Section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act 1974 makes the card issuer jointly liable for the seller's breach, up to £30,000. You can claim from the bank directly, without going to the seller first, and it covers misrepresentation as well as non-delivery. |
| Credit card under £100, or debit card | A chargeback under the card scheme's rules. It is discretionary, not a legal right, and it has time limits that run from the event date, so do not wait. |
| Pay by Bank or bank transfer | No chargeback. Your claim is against the seller, so keep everything in writing. |
| PayPal | PayPal's own buyer protection, on its terms, alongside your rights against the seller. |
Resold tickets
Buying a resold ticket brings you under sections 90 to 95 of the Consumer Rights Act 2015. Before you buy, the seller and the resale platform must tell you the seat or area, the face value, any restrictions such as age limits or ID requirements, and whether the seller is a business. If any of that is missing or wrong, the platform can be liable as well as the seller. If a resold ticket is refused at the door, the platform's guarantee is your first stop. Since April 2025 the price you first see must include every mandatory fee, so a fee that appears only at the checkout is itself a breach.
If a seller refuses a refund for a cancelled event
- Write to the seller. State the ground: the event was cancelled and the face value is owed. Give them 14 days. Keep the email.
- Go to your card issuer. A Section 75 claim or a chargeback, with the email chain attached. Banks resolve most of these in weeks.
- Ask about ADR. Many sellers belong to an Alternative Dispute Resolution scheme, which is quicker and cheaper than court; they must tell you which one if you ask in writing.
- Money Claim Online. The small claims track covers disputes up to £10,000. The issue fee for a claim of a few hundred pounds is a small fixed amount, and most sellers settle on receiving the claim rather than pay to defend it.
A seller cannot contract out of your statutory rights. If the seller cancels the event, "no refunds" in the terms is unenforceable. It does mean something if you are the one who changed your mind.
Things people get wrong
- Booking fees are not owed by law. The face value is. Most reputable sellers refund fees on a cancellation as policy; a court would not order it where the cancellation was nobody's fault.
- Insurance is separate. Ticket protection covers the reasons in the policy, such as illness or a train failure, and pays what the seller does not refund. It does not replace your claim against the seller.
- Weather is not automatically a cancellation. An outdoor event that goes ahead in the rain has been delivered. One the organiser calls off has not.
- Speed decides most disputes. Written, with evidence, within days, wins far more often than a phone call a month later.
Run your own events? See how to write a refund policy that says all of this before anyone has to ask.
