Buy a travel voucher
Vouchers are often the easiest category to transfer, because many are not yet attached to a person or a date. That also makes them the category where the issuer's own terms matter most.
Why are travel vouchers easier to buy than flights?
Because there is usually no passenger name to change and no gate agent to satisfy. The handover is a code changing hands rather than a supplier processing an amendment.
That removes the largest failure mode in every other category. What it does not remove is whether the voucher is worth anything to you, which its expiry date, its issuer and its restrictions decide.
So the checks on a voucher are all about redemption rather than transfer, which is the reverse of everything else on this site and catches people out for exactly that reason.
Are travel vouchers always transferable?
No. Many are redeemed by whoever holds the code, but a significant number of issuers tie a voucher to the person who bought it and will refuse it at redemption.
Airline gift cards are the common trap: several major carriers require the recipient name on the card to match the travel document, and prohibit changing it afterwards.
Compensation vouchers, airline credits and travel banks are frequently locked to the passenger who earned them, and are a different instrument again from a gift voucher bought with cash.
The listing states the issuer and the voucher type. Where the issuer is known to lock vouchers to a name, that belongs on the listing rather than being left for you to discover.
What should I check on a voucher before buying it?
Four things, in the order they most often catch people out. The seller can answer every one from the voucher itself.
A listing that leaves them unanswered is one where nobody has read the terms, including the person selling it.
- The expiry date, and whether it leaves you realistic time to redeem the voucher against something you actually want.
- Whether the issuer permits transfer at all, or requires the name on the voucher to match the traveller.
- What it can be redeemed against, which is frequently narrower than the marketing suggests.
- Whether it can be part-redeemed, or whether unused value simply disappears at the point of use.
What is checked before a listing reaches me?
When you submit your listing, it enters our review queue. A person checks it, and it becomes public only after approval.
Identity verification with Stripe is required before a seller can accept an offer or hand over a booking.
Neither check tells you whether the supplier will permit the transfer, because no marketplace can decide that on an airline's behalf. They are a filter on people, not a warranty on bookings.
So the division of labour is simple. Review and identity are ours. Reading the supplier's own transfer policy is yours, and it is the failure mode neither check can catch for you.
Questions buyers ask
What happens if the voucher expires before I use it?
Its value is gone. Expiry is the first thing to check and the easiest to underestimate, because redeeming a travel voucher means finding availability as well as finding the time.
A voucher with a few weeks left is worth far less than its face value to almost everybody, however good the discount looks.
Some issuers will extend an expiry date on request and many will not, so treat any possible extension as a bonus rather than as part of what you are buying.
Can I use a travel voucher against any booking?
Only against whatever the issuer allows, and the restrictions are usually tighter than they first appear. Some vouchers are limited to particular products, channels, seasons or minimum spends.
Others cannot be combined with a promotional fare, which quietly removes most of their practical value.
Read the redemption terms before buying rather than after, and treat a voucher whose terms you cannot find as one whose terms you will not like.
Is an airline compensation voucher the same as a gift voucher?
No, and the difference is worth money. A voucher offered after a disrupted flight often replaces a cash entitlement, and it is frequently locked to the passenger who earned it.
Compensation of 250, 400 or 600 euros by distance is set by Article 7 of Regulation 261/2004, and it is a long way from automatic. It applies only to flights within the regulation's territorial scope, on a confirmed reservation. Article 5 removes it entirely at 14 days' notice, and removes it at shorter notice where the airline offered rerouting inside the stated time limits. It also falls away where the airline proves extraordinary circumstances that all reasonable measures would not have avoided, and it can be halved after sufficiently prompt rerouting.Source: EUR-Lex — Regulation (EC) No 261/2004, Articles 5 and 7 (checked 2026-08-29)
A gift voucher bought as a present is a different instrument: paid for in cash, more often redeemable by the holder, and more likely to transfer cleanly.
Check which kind a listing is before you buy, because only one of them reliably becomes yours.
Related pages
Sources
- Regulation (EC) No 261/2004, Articles 5 and 7 — EUR-Lex, checked 2026-08-29