Coronavirus refund policies: British Airways, Virgin Atlantic, easyJet, Hilton, Marriott

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• Zain says:

  6 Apr6 April 10:09

  Rob, it looks like Amex have disabled the link to raise new chargeback requests. Can you confirm?

  On a side note, Amex had credited £250 worth of chargeback requests across 4 transactions with Easyjet in my account. Now Easyjet have disputed everything so Amex have reopened all cases. These are for flights this month which Easyjet clearly won’t be operating so I don’t get what information will they use to support their side of the dispute.

  • Lady London says:

    6 Apr6 April 11:18

    Extraordinary circumstances – which this overall current environment certainly is – only exempts the airline from paying you the compensation of around 300-600 if they cancel or significantly reschedule your flight.

    On 18th March the European Transport Commissioner made a statement confirming that currently exceptional circumstances apply so the compensation right does not apply as the cause of these cancellations is out of the airline’s control.

    Everyone agrees with this and our sympathies are with the airlines. However whilst there is a lot of panic about and we all have a lot more to go through, the airline industry will resurge eventually back to making profits. Airlines are not a public service and by far it’s not just them. The situation will pass and like any business good players will survive with support of the government’s and finance markets and some poorly managed ones will even survive with government support. But in the case of a well managed airline the need for support is also temporary if we take a long view.

    In the EC announcement it was confirmed that other rights under EC261/2004 stand so customers have the right to choose a refund or a reroute (rebooking) at the customers choice not the airline’s. Specifically, the announcement clarified that a customer does not have to accept vouchers if they want a refund.

    The airlines don’t have to pay compensation but they have been told they still have to behave properly and refund I think it’s fair. Anyone who has observed the tricks airlines go through to try not to give their customer these rights or their compensation even in normal times, will agree with me and the EC Transport Commissioner No you don’t have to compensate but as you didn’t provide the service then you can’t keep your passenger’s money. This is a business risk and should not become the risk of the customer.

    So I agree with you @Zain I have no idea why easyJet, which is now temporarily not running anyone’s paid-for flights, and which is sitting on a huge pile of cash as well as the huge pile of their customer’s money, thinks they have the right not to refund customers money for the service they did not deliver.

• Lady London says:

  6 Apr6 April 11:28

  I think we will find that any airline disputing a chargeback is just trying to use the dispute process to gain time to keep the customers money. The airlines think their wish to make a profit in the future means they can keep the money they owe to someone who’s lost their job and has a family to feed.

  The only possible reason Amex and other card companies could allow an airline to delay a full chargeback is if Amex and the card companies are also trying to save their own money.

  More sinisterly, let’s hope that the airlines are not able to succeed in destroying consumer rights by the lobbying they will doubtless be doing behind the scenes so they don’t have to give customers their rights. They are businesses not a public service.

• surfnode says:

  6 Apr6 April 11:44

  Cancellation of Virgin Award booking in July, 30 GBP fee of course. All via text and they sent me this confirmation:
  “No trouble at all, I can cancel those out now for you. You will have a confirmation sent to your email within the next 20 days and then the refund will be paid within 100 days.
  Miles are back in the account now also!”

  Is that normal or are they just managing their cashflow? I assume the money is safe anyway (ca 1k in Taxes) as paid via credit card but still…

  • Lady London says:

    7 Apr7 April 12:43

    100 days is taking the ****.
    It’s also putting you actually getting the money back, at risk.

    Personally id go to my credit card.after 28. EC261 says they have to refund you in 7 if it was their cancellation not yours. Generally in these times I could accept up to28. If rich and with an attitude towards taking risk possibly up to two weeks more. But being told 100 now, with airlines regularly not meeting their own deadlines even in normal times, is asking me for too much faith so I’d go to credit card after 28.

• Rob says:

  6 Apr6 April 16:10

  Very weird. It was there – in fact, it was there yesterday morning, so for over 24 hours – and now it has gone.

• Niblo says:

  6 Apr6 April 16:26

  Hello! I had a Flight + car holiday booked to Finland in late May. Looking to move to September. BA cancelled the May LHR HEL flights there and back. For September only Finnair is showing (on BA codeshare), no BA metal, and AY is a lot more expensive (their pricing to HEL always is). Should I expect BA to move me to the more expensive Finnair flights at their cost, as they cancelled?
  Sadly, I had only paid so far the deposit not the full holiday price. thanks

  • Lady London says:

    7 Apr7 April 01:54

    You should be ok if you paid even just the deposit. You will find out what should happen if you read the terms from when you bought the package

    Basically if you want a refund of what you paid I would expect you to get it. If you call them s d ask are they booking you on Finnair instead I would expect you to get that too and for another date provided there isn’t s problem with the hotel as well.

    Give them a call.

    • Lady London says:

      7 Apr7 April 01:56

      Ps there is no way you should be asked for any extra money if it does turn out to be Finnair flights

• Andi Hawes says:

  6 Apr6 April 16:37

  Apologies if this has been covered, but i was planning an Easter 2021 getaway to Orlando on Miles. What is peoples thought on booking this in the current climate?
  You think id get a taxes refund if the airline collapsed?
  And how do you book miles seats when the outbound becomes availble 331 days before the flight but the return is not available?

  Id assume id lose points, used or unused if it did collapse

  • Rob says:

    6 Apr6 April 16:56

    Taxes are covered by Section 75, yes.

    You can book the outbound now and ring BA to add the return when it comes up.

• TimM says:

  6 Apr6 April 18:01

  Rob, there is little point in the law when the courts have been closed. Those who have our money are using it as they want regardless of the law and at the same time very vigorously lobbying governments for changes in the law so they can continue to keep it – regardless.

  I have asked for my refund, when it was possible to ask for a refund. It isn’t now. That was a month ago. I have asked for a chargeback on my card. That was a week ago. No contact, other than automated, from either.

  I can see the days of paying in full for flights other than today or tomorrow will come to an end. Airlines will never be trusted again.

• Ron Harris says:

  6 Apr6 April 19:27

  Appreciate some advice on this one – I just got an email from BA about a travel voucher – this was for reward flights back from Atlanta on 24th March inc a domestic transfer LHR – EDI.

  In an email I received just now BA say I am not entitled to a travel voucher as I had already started my journey. They cancelled the inbound flights and made no contact with me about rebooking, I had to get my own way back from Atlanta, which I did as a precaution anyway, but they made no effort to contact me.

  Clearly I am going to have to phone them but am I entitled to a whole refund for the booking or for the return legs or nothing as they claim?

  • Ron Harris says:

    6 Apr6 April 19:37

    Plus weirdly the booking has disappeared from my flight history – is that normal?

  • Lady London says:

    7 Apr7 April 01:35

    sounds a bit weird. Ok do they did not contact you? When and how did you find out your flight was cancelled? Did you not ask them for a reroute/replacement flight or refund at that time?

    Ok they or your travel agent(if you used one) should have contacted you. If they didn’t I would still expect you to have given them a reasonabl chance to sort you out. So I am hoping to hear you did at least try to contact them but perhaps could not get through on the phone.

    Provided you acted something like the above then they’re talking bolox and they now owe you a refund if you say you want one, that is your right and you don’t have to accept a voucher. With an avios booking especially, you shouldn’t. Agios comes back to you as avios, cash as cash as normally. Just nothing deducted as it wasn’t your change.

    If you get stuck you can go to the UK credit card you paid on request s75 refund of my your alternate cost s to get home – as that was a consequential loss of the cancellation you suffered / replacement cost of what you paid for.

    If you tried to reach them and failed or they refused the airline also owes you any extra accomodation, transport and meals cost if you had to spend longer before your replacement flight – but you had to have given them a reasonable chance to provide these before you arranged yourself – is they refused, their support was nowhere to be found or they were uncontactable. You claim those under EC261 off the airline but under s75 your UK credit card is also liable for these if airline doesn’t pay.

    If you paid on charge card your only option is chargeback which will not cover everything but if it’s Amex talk to them nicely and their reputation is for decades their own help will be quite good.

    • Lady London says:

      7 Apr7 April 01:40

      Ps as you already consumed the outward part of the ticket your remedies will only have to concern the ticket back from ATL on the 2 flights.

      Nice try but of course since you used half of it you don’t get the used half back as well. If you read the actual EC261 legislation text there is a narrow case where if you do a double Axel and a triple flip you could just about say you deserved the outward back as well but that does not sound like your case.

      • Lady London says:

        7 Apr7 April 01:45

        So if ba are refusing then you could claim your cost of however you did get back instead – but that doesn’t mean you get a double payout from airline and/or cardco – you choose to claim either your more expensive actual journey home or a return of your cash and avoid.

        • Ron Harris says:

          7 Apr7 April 09:29

          I couldn’t get in touch with BA when I was in Atlanta, so I took the initiative and booked a one-way with Virgin, BEFORE BA cancelled the inbound flights. But BA didn’t know that obviously.

          But neither did they offer me any rebooking options later when they did cancel the flights, either in MMB or by email. I’m not looking for compensation, merely the refund on inbound legs.

          I will try and phone today

          Thanks

        • Ron Harris says:

          7 Apr7 April 12:00

          Arrrrghhh BA contact centre just cut you off everytime – how can anybody possibly get through?

        • Lady London says:

          7 Apr7 April 12:35

          I think you must make clear that when you realised there was a cancellation on your return leg you tried to contact them to request them to reroute/rebook you but you could not get through. Therefore you are looking for a refund of the avios for the return leg and half the taxes or correct proportion of.

          I think to try to recover the cost of transport you took to get back instead is more precarious as you’ve admitted you booked it before you were told your original flight was cancelled. Not impossible to claim depending how you present it, just more precarious.

        • Ron Harris says:

          7 Apr7 April 16:28

          Thanks very much for the advice and I agree.
          STill not been able to get through on phone though!!

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