Is a three month ticket refund window standard with Air Canada?
Hey folks - apologies if I missed another thread on this (mods, please merge if so).
I’ve managed to get a phone agent to issue a full refund (despite her being adamant that no refunds were due) for a direct return flight which was originally on the Max, but then switched to a connecting flight therefore eligible for either a one-time change or cancellation.
I opted to cancel the booking for a refund, but the agent quoted me a three-month processing time.
What’s more is that no cancellation email confirmation was issued (again the agent was adamant that they don’t send these out) but instead I got an email re-confirming my booking (!). The agent said this was standard procedure and that if I tried to check my booking online it’d fail to display - indeed it throws a “Sorry, we're not able to display this booking online” error but it also says to call if I need to make any changes to it (?).
Granted, I’ve never done a cancellation with AC before, but the email reconfirming my booking, the absence of a cancellation confirmation (coupled with the error of the agent who originally refused to give a refund) and the three-month processing window all sound… too haphazard.
Therefore I wanted to ask the collective if this was standard as far as you’re concerned. Refunds usually take a few minutes to process and maybe a day or two to transfer back to the customer. Three months, even by today’s standards, is obscene, especially since this now means that AC is holding the money without rendering any services.
I pressed the agent on this and she said that there are a lot of refunds going out, despite her saying originally that they don’t do refunds and only vouchers are sent. So if you’re sending vouchers to everyone, how do you have a refund backlog? That went down like a lead balloon…
Grateful for your thoughts!