The refund is a no brainer and, while mentioned as an obligation of the air carrier in the EU directive, is is a tautology of one of the fundamental principles of civil law: there is a contract, one party - for reasons entirely under their control - decides to not provide the service that has been previously confirmed: in that case, of course they have to refund.


Why are you presenting this, as if we were trying to take advantage of the situation in order to get something that is actually beneficial for us or to avail of "more convenience"? This is absolutely not the case.

The air carrier canceling a flight and not offering a viable re-routing option, in addition to the inconvenience caused, inflicts financial damage on us (because we have to pay a higher price than contractually agreed to get the service which we require).

I agree with you on the risk of Vueling refusing to compensate that damage. Trust me that was entirely obvious during the discussions I had with them.

We will not refrain from anything. As stated before, a refund for a service that is not and will not be provided, isn't some kind of special offer, which expires if not accepted in time. Since we'll have to book (and pay for) the Ryanair flights ourselves anyway, we will make a claim of the full Ryanair ticket price and ask them to keep the change. Otherwise, (as etienne has pointed out), we would indeed forego the possibility for that claim.