The full rebate offer: a question from a foreign viewer

Hi everybody, I got a question for you. I'm italian and I'm not very good in english: I'd like to know what the airline manager was meaning when he offered Sterling Hayden a full rebate in exchange for not allowing him to take the big baggage on board. Did he mean that he was offering him and his lady a full refund, giving them back the price they paid for their tickets, cancelling their reservation at no cost (although they were already past cancelation time), or was he offering them the chance to buy an additional ticket at reduced price, to bring the baggage on the plane with them?

The reason for me asking is that in the italian version of the movie (which I saw first), the manager meant the latter: he offers Hayden to buy an additional ticket at half the price, to which he, to my big surprise, refuse. The bad consequences of this choice we all know about. And I was very surprised of such an illogical behaviour by the character (who wouldn't pay a few hundreds bucks to save 2 millions?)...

Some months later I saw the movie again in english and seems to me that the manager was actually offering a cencellation, which makes much more sense for Hayden to refuse. But since from what I read on dictionaries "full rebate" can mean both "refund" and "maximum discount", I have to ask to some native english speaker: what was the manager meaning? Am I correct thinking that italian dubbers changed the dialogue?

Thanks everybody :)