Originally Posted by
lovetoholiday
If I have a non refundable, non transferable ticket is it really impossible to do either even if I pay an admin fee.
Originally Posted by
lovetoholiday
The ticket was purchased in the UK.
One thing you don't say is that the ticket is non-changeable.
If the ticket is changeable, then you can save much of its value by making use of the change facility. If the ticket is changeable, you can usually change flight, date, cabin and route. If you have no current plans for a future trip, you can still save its value by changing it now to some future date to park it, and then making a second change when you have a new trip in mind. There are technicalities about these steps, and you won't get any refund of the base fare already paid, but broadly speaking I think that this should be possible to do this as an alternative to just throwing away what you've already paid.
If you can't now make the trip for an insured reason, then of course the best thing to do may be to cancel the ticket, get back what taxes, fees and charges you can, and ask your insurer for the rest of the insured amount.