Melnq8

What a pain surfmom, this has turned into a full time job for you. I hope you get this resolved.

A glimmer of hope for us today regarding our cancelled trip to Portugal for later this month. After speaking with Expedia and the hotel we booked through them in Lisbon, and being told by both that our only option was too book the hotel for a later date as it's non-refundable, lo' and behold today I received an email from Expedia asking me to cancel the hotel at least 24 hours prior to arrival to avoid being charged the entire amount.

I was hesitant to hit the CANCEL button, but figured I would then just follow up with the hotel and let them know we don't know yet when we can reschedule. But when I hit CANCEL, it gave me a full refund! Woo-hoo! Won't see it for a month or so, but hey, it's a start.

Now if the airline would just be as cooperative.

surfmom

Melnq8 oooh, good news for you.

others have asked why I won't just start a dispute with the cc company ... (good news is that I used AmEx platinum) - I don't want to be blacklisted! Don't know if they use it as an excuse or not, but just trying to be patient!

mrwunrfl

blacklisted? what does that even mean in this case?

whitehall

There are so-called “blacklists” for consumers who engage in credit card fraud and even “friendly fraud” in some cases. The car rental industry, for example, has a “Do Not Rent” list for some former customers who have filed certain disputes. “Friendly fraud” is filing a chargeback without proper justification. Remember, the moment you file your dispute, your funds are withdrawn from the merchant’s account, at least on a temporary basis. If you do it because you didn’t like your flight or because you want a refund for a non-refundable flight or because your rental car was dirty or you didn’t like your cruise, that might put you on a list. HOWEVER, not getting a refund for a flight cancelled by an airline should not “blacklist” anyone and should not be considered any type of fraud, “friendly” or otherwise.

Again, I have chargeback requests pending against one hotel and three European airlines, all without any gray area. I cancelled one initial dispute against JetBlue. At first, they seemed to not provide a refund option. When they paid up, I quickly “closed” that dispute.

Volotea airlines, a Spanish airline, has advised us that they probably won’t respond to refund claims until the coronavirus epidemic has passed and that will be so many months, we are advised by them to take their voucher. Our first request to Easy Jet bounced back as mailbox full, but a second attempt told us not to bother them again for at least 90 days. Air France is thinking about it.
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mrwunrfl

There is no fraud here. Royal Air Maroc and Norwegian Air are grounded. It is easy to show that surfmom is due a refund. The problem is that there are millions of other ticket holders that aree in the same boat. Norwegian averaged over 3 million passengers per month last year. That airline is in bad shape. I would not just wait in line for a refund.

LT

Update on our situation: Got an email from Ryanair (parent of Laudamotion) that our outbound DUB - VIE flight was cancelled! Filed for a refund and am going to take the advice of others here & file a chargeback request.

One down, one to go... Can't seem to get much info on what Aer Lingus is up to these days (were taking them return from VIE - DUB on May 12), especially as it relates to intra-Europe flying... Any Ireland/EU Fodorites have any updated info?

THANKS again to all the posters here, and wherever you are, hope you're staying dafe & healthy!

RubyTwins

Hi it appears that Ovagio is going to give us a refund (after a hassle) for our Lufthansa / Swissair flights to Italy. We did buy seats via Swissair. They told us we had to get our refund from Ovagio--which is odd since we purchased seat selection directly from them. Any insight on this?

whitehall

Normally seat fees are to be included in refunds for flights cancelled by airlines (at least in the US but I suspect EU as well). I am not sure how Ovago is in a position to refund you for flights on Lufthansa/Swissair, since both of those airlines are on the long list of carriers currently ignoring EU rules to provide such refunds. Since you paid for the airline directly for the seat fee, I suspect you would have to get a refund for that from the airline not your third party that had nothing to do with it. They probably directed you to the third party for the seat refund as part of the process of wearing down consumers at a time when they don't have the cash flow to pay all refunds. Even if the airlines should provide a refund to Ovago for your flights themselves, there are many reviews online that suggest that Ovago imposes substantial service charges for their effort. I would be curious to know if you actually get a refund for your airfare from Ovago and if you paid a service charge.

Melnq8

I'd booked flights on Expedia, but had to contact the airline directly to book (and subsequently refund) my seat assignments on Lufthansa. Lufthansa told me they'd issue the refund weeks ago, but still haven't so I've disputed the charge with my credit card company. So far, the dispute has been resolved for two of the seat assignments, but four are still outstanding.

whitehall

Credit card companies often write off small amounts rather than pursue merchants on chargeback requests. Our charges for Air France were separated by flight and seat fees. When we disputed all our amounts, we immediately got a credit for the two seat fees. That didn't come from Air France but from AMEX as a write-off on their part. We expect to wait several weeks for a decision on the dispute. ×

Melnq8

whitehall -

Our credit card company (USAA) immediately credited all of the disputes, ranging from $14 to $2,500, pending a resolution. They have since contacted us to advise that two seat charges have been resolved. The others are still unresolved, which seems odd as four of the seat charges were for the same trip, just different flights on the same day.

I'd be curious to know how exactly the dispute process works between credit card company and merchant. I assume the credit card company notifies the merchant of the dispute, the merchant pleads their case, and then the credit card company decides who has the stronger case?

whitehall

I am in the US, and this may vary in other parts of the world. When anyone files a chargeback request, you are provided a temporary "credit" pending the outcome of the dispute. The seat charges were probably small enough that the credit card company simply wrote them off. It is possible that they have a limit on how many small charges they write off for each customer in a given period, hence the other ones still pending. The process is that once you file your dispute, you get the temporary credit, the funds are debited from the merchant (airline), and the merchant is given 30 days to respond. If they do not respond, the credit becomes final and permanent. I am guessing that at least some airlines have a standard response that is provided to the card issuer. Part of that response may be that the passengers have been offered a credit voucher which they will argue (incorrectly I might add) is of like value. I have read that in Canada some credit card companies have accepted this response and have denied the chargeback requests. As a former merchant, my experience, at least 10 years ago, was that, if you are denied, you can simply re-initiate the request up to three times and then have an arbiter, if necessary, make a final decision. The process involves two middlemen, your card issuer and the company that processes the charge for the merchant; our experience was that your card issuer typically supports you, and the processor on the other end supports the merchant). This adversarial relationship sometimes makes it difficult in gray area scenarios such as questions about the quality of merchandise received. Trying to show that a service was or was not provided (i.e. flight cancelled by an airline) should be a black and white issue. I think we will see news stories in the coming weeks about how various credit card companies are responding to the thousands of requests they have pending. They may deal with US-based airline refunds one way and European based refunds in a different manner.

Melnq8

Interesting, thanks for that whitehall.

Rocket79

Hey all - I have finally been notified by Delta that my flight to Vancouver in May has been cancelled. They then went on about the voucher/credit. What is the best way to get a refund? Contact Delta customer service and just ask for a refund? I don't want to do this the wrong way.... I booked with my Amex Delta Rewards Card, BTW. Thanks all. What surreal times we live in.

whitehall

If you got an online notice of cancellation, there should be an option to request a refund. As I recollect, it was buried in the response. We made the request and got our refunds in two days. That was about two weeks ago.

mrwunrfl

You could try online or call. If you call, then you can phrase it any way you want but you would be (calmly) making a demand, giving an order. You can tell the agent to refund the price you paid to your credit card. They won't be able to deliver what you paid for and now they owe you money.

Rocket79

Thank you - I will look again at that email and go from there.

Adelaidean

I requested a refund from Qatar for flights cancelled in June.
A voucher wasn’t going to be an option due to work rosters anyway.
I received an email yesterday, about a week after the request.
They state it could take up to 8 weeks to process and to refrain from ringing, emailing etc as the volume of enquires is problematic.

Macross

I was told by Alex at Virgin Atlantic to DM them on facebook. We will see and sure hate spending time on the phone but flight is for next Thursday. They are giving us till Nov 30th to book without rate change but does that mean we can book by Noc 30th for May or for only Nov 30th? I can just imagine rebooking a flight, but then we might not see a dime. We had a great nonstop flight with excellent seats for a 1000 rt for both. That is why I would consider a voucher but at the same rate. This was into Gatwick where we really wanted to land. They are no longer going there at this time. So much up in the air. We have not seen any refund from AF and might as well kiss that Eurostar money goodbye.

mrwunrfl

If they aren't flying to Gatwick then your flight is cancelled and you are due a refund.

Sounds like you are in this category: you have a ticket originally issued on or before 19 March 2020, for original travel dates up to and including 30 September 2020.
See: https://flywith.virginatlantic.com/g...es-policy.html

For the no fare difference and no change fee the rebooked travel would have to complete by Nov 30. That is true if your origin and destination don't change. Changing from Gatwick to another London airport might be a destination change, maybe not.

If you want to travel next May then you would have to pay the fare difference, if any. That is assuming VS is still in business.

Most of that policy addresses the travel dates but not deadline for rebooking, except where it says: You'll just need to make sure you rebook and travel by the 30th September 2022.