Its a little bonus, but not for long!!!
Presently all carriers are involved in this racket of non refunds on APD which is a goverment tax, but only applies to pax flown, not pax that book (and pay the APD) but for what ever reason do not fly.
Airlines can not lawfully refuse to refund this the APD, however they can (and do) lawfully apply an admin fee for dealing with this refund, the policy varies company to company, but in general with the like of Flybe, Ryan, and most of the LoCo carriers if you are a family of 4 paying around £100 in APD you will be charged around £20.00 per person admin fee to get back £25.00 each, ok you say you still get back £5.00, sorry not so beacuse the " credit card fee" applies whether you are being debited or credited!!! so expect another £3.50 per person on top, do the maths and from the APD of £100 you will be lucky end up with more than £6.00.
In some case the admin fee plus credit card fee is more than the APD paid so you are out of pocket, if this was a high street bank there would be an out cry!!
BUT NOT FOR LONG
From 2009 the APD will be abolished and airlines will be charged based on a new formula based on aircraft emissions, NOTE AIRLINES WILL BE CHARGED not passengers, of course the goverment in the run up to the election will put positive spin on this for customers, but airlines will pay more and will have to decide how and if to pass this on, either way HMG will get the dosh whether the aircraft goes full or empty and MOL and other bandits will no longer be able to pocket the cash that rightly belongs to the passenger.
BTW its not just airlines that do this sort of thing, Trainline apply similar fee's that mean if you apply for a refund it will cost you more than (you wont) get back
I suspect that the scam goes far deeper and that some airlines spread the APD amongst their pax figures, but most heavily on pax that don't fly, remember the APD only applies to flights within or leaving the UK, not the return leg so you pay it twice to fly from London to Scotland , but once to fly from BRS to AGP (Malaga) and back, it get even m ore interesting when you get into two class cabins because in theory ADP doubles, some carriers have got round this by removing the cabin divders or curtains which makes the aircraft single class but still charge the extra APD, this is one of the many reasons why the goverment is moving to an aircraft based charge, the current regime is all but impossible to police and is wide open to fraud (just like family tax credits,disabilty allowances to name a few) a good idea, but not thought through.