I was wondering if anyone had any experience in the case where you do not need to travel and you have a fully refundable ticket how easy is it to cancel that trip and get a refund? I presume this has to be done prior to departure??
Ex-UK, if it is a truly refundable ticket (e.g. F, J, W or Y), then these fares allow no-shows and can still be refunded even if you simply failed to board.
Sometimes getting out of the airport can be tricky. Terminal 5 has some ridiculous procedures if you want to become "decontrolled". There was a thread about it recently.