Is there a magical formula for getting a refund from Indian Airlines?!?
 

We bought refundable tickets on Indian Airlines for internal flights on a trip that we took to India in December -- one flight was booked on the Indian Airlines website and the other via the Indian Airlines toll-free number. We cancelled both tickets while in India before the flight dates (even getting the paper tickets booked via phone endorsed at an Indian Airlines office). Now that we are home we cannot seem to reach anyone to process either refund -- nobody at Indian Airlines responds to emails. We can't do anything via credit card, as the charges were already paid months ago. It is rather frustrating and we wondered if anyone out there had found a magical way to get service from Indian Airlines on refunds?! We would be grateful for any/all creative suggestions....

File a dispute with your credit card company. You will have to document everything you have done so far. If you have a copy of the refund policy that would help. The credit card company will do the rest of the leg work.

have it paid back to the credit card which would put you in the negetive...then call the credit card company and they will send you a check..

call their usa office in ny or la or wherever it is here...

Unfortunately we cannot dispute the charge with the credit card company, as the charge was made and paid months ago when we booked the tickets -- apparently one can only dispute a charge before paying the bill. We have called the offices here, emailed every email address that we can find on the Indian Airlines website (no responses from anyone). As it turns out, it appears that Indian Airlines does not have an actual operation here --- only a "general sales agent" agreement with SITA World Travel, who has the right to use the Indian Airlines name (though they are not the same company and have separate refund policies, etc...). Keep those suggestions coming though -- we will keep you posted on our progress.

I have successfully disputed a charge with AMEX that I had paid months before. It was not trouble at all.

Did you purchase the tickets through SITA travel? Is there a way of contacting them? Like Kim, we have never had a problem with a dispute even after the bill is paid. We use the Mileage Plus Visa issued by Chase.

You stated that you have emailed every address that you could find for Indian Air. This is just a shot in the dark, but did you try this one? <[email protected]>

Thanks all. We'll try the credit card route and see if they'll take up the cause. We did indeed try the "help desk" email address at Indian Airlines.