No refunds

Question

Hello!I'm trying to find a wording for this content: You do not get a refund when changing your existing ticket for a cheaper one.The problem is that this has to be said in very little space. So the question is that is this still comprehensibel to a native (or anubody else...)?: No refunds for cheaper tickets.thanks for your help!Johan

Mister Micawber · Accepted Answer

Hello, Johan - and welcome to English Forums. I think you'll have to add at least one word:

No refunds for cheaper exchange tickets.

KrisBlueNZ · Answer

Hi Johan. I have a few thoughts.

"NO REFUNDS FOR CHEAPER TICKETS" is a good start but it's not perfect.

I'm going to assume that you're writing a sign to advise customers that when they bring a ticket in (let's call it Ticket A) and ask for it to be changed to a cheaper ticket (Ticket B), they will not receive any money. Specifically, a customer might expect (or hope) that he would receive the difference, in purchase price, between the tickets, but this sign tells him that he won't. Do I understand you properly?

In general, REFUND means a FULL refund (sometimes excluding postage and packing, but that's not relevant here). What you're talking about is a refund of the DIFFERENCE between the ticket the person brought in, and the ticket they go away with, right? So this is at most a PARTIAL refund, or PART refund (to take a liberty that is often taken when writing signs).

FOR is not the right word here, because the refund (or partial refund) is not FOR the cheaper tickets; it relates to the overall transaction. Words like ON or WITH will work better.

CHEAPER TICKETS is clear enough, but why is the Ticket B cheaper than Ticket A? If the difference is due to a reduced GRADE of service, we use the word DOWNGRADE to summarise the whole transaction; even if the difference is due to a reduced travel distance, or a changed date or time, DOWNGRADE is general enough to cover it, because if Ticket B is CHEAPER than Ticket A, some kind of DOWNGRADE is taking place.

I'll try making some changes to fix these points.

No refunds for cheaper tickets

No part refund on ticket downgrade

Part refunds NOT GIVEN on ticket downgrades

That one implies that maybe FULL refunds would be given, which doesn't make sense, but to avoid ambiguity we can try removing the PART again...

Refunds not given on ticket downgrades

No refund with ticket downgrade

This raises the question: are tickets refundable (i.e. redeemable for cash) in any way at all? Tickets usually aren't, and a ticket downgrade would usually not involve any cash refund for the same reason, so perhaps this would be better combined with "Tickets are not redeemable for cash".

No cash refunded for tickets nor on ticket downgrades

Those are my thoughts. I'm a native English speaker (New Zealand).

Translate · Answer

Hi!

and thanks for your thorough replies! Very good points but here space or actually the lack thereof is the issue! The sentence should preferable be no more than 24 characters, while my wording has 31 (including full stop). It's very challenging for me as a non-native speaker to achieve that and to make if fully correct. I like this suggestion: "No refund with ticket downgrade".

Johan

Mister Micawber · Answer

OK, go with that, then.

CalifJim · Answer

TranslateThe sentence should preferably be no more than 24 characters

Successively shorter versions:

No refunds on ticket exchanges.

No refund on ticket change.

Ticket change - no refund.

No refund on reticketing.

Ticket swap - no refund.

New ticket? No refund.

No reticketing refunds.

Reticket? No refund.

No reticket refunds.

CJ

No refunds

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