KLM refund process - not good!

Old Apr 25th, 2016, 07:09 AM
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KLM refund process - not good!

This is rather small potatoes in the grand scope of travel, but it's starting to really bug me.

Two of us traveled from SFO to AMS on April 4. We had purchased and confirmed "preferred seats" in economy, but ended up purchasing upgrades to Business Class at the airport. The counter agent told us to save our boarding passes and to apply on the KLM website for a refund of the original cost of the preferred seats, as their system did not allow them to just apply it to the new ticket cost.

In order to apply for the refund, one must use the online form at the KLM website. It requires an "EMD" number, which is the identifying number for the purchase found on my credit card statement. Okay - did that, submitted it, and now KLM has sent me an email saying they have "rejected" the claim, and I must resubmit the claim and attach a copy of the actual credit card statement showing the payment was actually charged.

There is no method available to attach anything to the submission of the refund claim. I can't call them, because the phone call goes directly to DELTA, who apparently handles these issues in the USA. The DELTA rep says they have no access to KLM refund claims, and the only way to submit a claim is online at the KLM website.

So now I am trapped in this circular process. The dollar amount is barely enough for me to wish to pursue this - seriously my time is worth more than this. But it makes me angry that they have set this up in such a way that they probably rake in some extra money because it's doubtful most people will want to spend hours dealing with something as small as $100.

I was a KLM fan up until now ...
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Old Apr 25th, 2016, 01:15 PM
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Post what you said here on their facebook page. That will often get faster/better results than dealing w/ the 'formalities'.
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Old May 1st, 2016, 08:10 AM
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Thanks for that suggestion janis --- I did follow your suggestion, basically cut-and-pasted the same message I posted here. And then KLM followed up with a very loooong private message to me asking for even more details - it was overwhelming. They asked for a list of about 15 items, including copies of my cc statement, my bank routing number (?), ticket numbers, code numbers, boarding passes, upgrade numbers, stuff that I had no idea what it even was.

So what I did was to go back on their own website and resubmit the very same info I had given before on the very same online form - the one that had been rejected - and added a note saying they should have a record of the payment themselves.

And then I just decided to forget it.

Lo and behold, today I found an email in my inbox, saying "We would like to inform you that we will transfer the refundable amount to your account for the tickets mentioned below:"

I will believe it when I see the credit, but I do think posting on their FB page was a brilliant idea. Thanks, janis!
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Old May 8th, 2016, 02:50 PM
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that's a relief, I generally like KLM and am flying them in a couple months, but that was the stupidest response I have heard -- asking you to prove it was charged to your CC. They have a bank and should be able to tell themselves what was charged to a card.
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Old May 8th, 2016, 04:09 PM
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Oh -- didn't see your post . . . that is great.

Has the credit showed up yet?
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Old May 8th, 2016, 07:42 PM
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Yes - I was surprised to see that it showed up just a few days after they emailed me.

That was a bit of a weird experience, but I think it ended well.
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