UK households urged to come forward for five refunds worth £6,243 before Christmas

Five refunds you can claim now worth thousands of pounds have been revealed - and you’ll get the cash before Christmas. You could get some much-needed cash for Christmas with refunds, personal finance experts are correctly pointing out.

Many of them can be arranged by filling in a form or making a quick phone call. Refunds are the things we all want as we head towards Christmas because,, needless to say, businesses and other organisations didn’t always treat people fairly.

But you may be surprised to learn that you’re probably entitled to all sorts of refunds that you didn’t even know about. Making a few savings can really help you make your cash go further, but remember that businesses are super busy these days.

READ MORE UK set to be hammered by 5cm of snow with two parts of England 'bearing brunt'

So for non-urgent enquiries take your time and try to avoid tying up phone lines at peak times where possible.

Student loans - £3300

In fact, a Freedom of Information (FOI) request by MoneySavingExpert (MSE) found that over a million graduates overpaid their student loan in the last tax year alone. Over recent years, the Student Loans Company has introduced a number of initiatives to reduce overpayments and improve the repayment process for students. This includes introducing an online repayment service, issuing automatic refunds and actively contacting those who might have overpaid.

""Thank you so much. I knew something wasn’t right when I lodged my tax returns and reading Martin’s article was the catalyst for a sustained attempt to work out what had happened. I received £3,773 back," one Money Saving Expert reader wrote.

A second said: "Thanks to watching Martin Lewis's programme last night I contacted the SLC and have got a refund of £706 as I had started paying straightaway. Great just before Christmas." Another typed: "Just wanted to say a massive thank you as I read your article on overpaying on student loan repayments and realised there was a chance I had overpaid. Turns out I had and I've since received a refund of £900! I've been doing house renovations this year so this money has been incredibly handy in going towards them."

Council tax - £2171

Martin Lewis revealed that "hundreds of thousands" of homes in England and Scotland might be categorised under the wrong council tax band. This misclassification could lead to people paying more than necessary due to the way council tax bands are assessed. If your home is incorrectly banded, you could be entitled to a substantial refund from your local council. Some have reported receiving more than £6,000 in total.

Thrifty social media users who took Martin's advice are now urging others to do the same after successfully reducing their council tax. Shell Clarke, writing on X, said: "After martin talking about this in a show a couple of years ago I looked into what my neighbours bands were and if their properties were similar to mine, which they were.

"My husband said I was wasting my time. I challenged the local authority and won, receiving a refund of £6649". While Bev North said: "Hi Martin. Did the council tax check you suggested a while ago. Claimed two and half thousand pounds back. Many thanks!"

Karen Halliwell added: "Just checked my council tax band and filled out the challenge form took me a couple of minutes as I found I was in a higher band than my neighbours thank you so much for the information."

Marriage allowance - £252

The Marriage Allowance lets the lower-earning spouse transfer up to £1,260 of their Personal Allowance to a husband, wife or civil partner. This reduces the higher earner’s tax by up to £252 in the tax year. To benefit, the lower earner must have an income below the Personal Allowance, which is usually £12,570.

Pension tax refunds

A total of £44.3 million was repaid from 1 July to 30 September, according to the latest data from HMRC. Dawn Register, head of tax dispute resolution at accountancy firm, BDO, said: “You might be due a tax refund if you have made charitable donations or if you have made certain tax-efficient investments (like Enterprise Investment Scheme, EIS, or Seed Enterprise Investment Scheme, SEIS). Alternatively, you might have allowable expenses to claim against your employment income, you may not have worked for the whole of the tax year, or HMRC may have used an estimate in your tax code for the year which proved to be excessive.”

If you think you’ve overpaid tax and haven’t received an automatic rebate or a P800 form, you can claim your tax refund using Gov.uk’s online tool. You’ll need to answer a few questions about why you think you’ve overpaid tax, and each instance has details on your likelihood of being owed a refund (for instance, if you haven’t received a P800 then you’re told “you’ve probably paid the right amount of tax”), and how to claim one.

Delayed travel - £520

For flights, you should be able to get compensation if your flight was leaving from the UK, leaving from the EU, Iceland, Norway or Switzerland, arriving in the UK on a UK or EU airline or arriving in the EU with a UK airline. For a flight less than 1,500km you need to be delayed more than two hours, then up to 3,500km it’s three hours, and above that it’s four hours.

The refunds are worth between £220 and £520 depending on how long the journey is and how much you were delayed by.