Originally Posted by
skunker
I told everyone EY would make it difficult and people laughed at me.
EY is a great airline, when you aren't trying to screw them over. I used AA miles to fly F LAX-JFK-AUH-MLE. AA failed to deliver my wife's bag to EY in JFK which we discovered on our overnight in AUH. As we were staying at the Park Hyatt in the Maldives the only way to get there is the hotel's boat. Two days later EY chartered a sea plane from MLE to deliver my wife's bag to the hotel. Now that is service!
Will you get that same level of service on a $187 coach ticket? No. Will they still fly you from JFK to AUH? Yes. Take it or leave it.
Yeah, that's my point. A lot of people want to leave it but Etihad won't let it happen. It shouldn't take weeks of phone call ping pong, or months as it will soon be for some, to process a refund. At this point, they are punishing potential flyers. And for what? Booking a mistake fare? If that's "trying to screw them over" then all the travel blogs should be renamed, "How to screw over the airlines."
If anyone here has requested a refund, and actually received their money back from Etihad, please tell us your experience. I'm not holding my breath, however. Perhaps, as skunker suggests, people who booked the mistake fares are too ghetto for Etihad to bother with. Or they figure people will get tired and abandon the refund process. Who knows? Etihad's behavior simply makes no sense.
Either way, it's no longer puzzling why the world's 7th ranked airline in 2013 according to Skytrax abruptly withdrew from that ratings system the following year. Etihad can call it a dispute over methodology all they want, but one look at their current passenger reviews on Skytrax shows them well on their way to becoming another low-rated airline.