zeer0

This scummy excuse of an "airline" finally emailed me back about my request to convert Aeroplan points into a cash refund.

This is what I was sent: "Thanks for contacting us about your request for a refund for your ticket previously converted to Aeroplan points. We have requested a retraction of your points, however Aeroplan have indicated that you don't have enough aeroplan miles to retract. As such, we are unable to process your refund."

Only thing is, my Aeroplan points were literally DEDUCTED the very day that I requested this conversion all the way back in April. I am seriously amazed at this continuous saga of absolute incompetence. Anyone else get such a comical response?

TTC900Rocket

AC’s patting themselves on the back saying they’ve resolved the majority of the cases is insulting when many cases are still open (e.g., mine from the summer of 2020).

gary1974

Has anyone out there had a similar issue with me whereby Air Canada is keeping part of my refund based on my scenario below ...a) I buy a ticket for $1,000 on my Visa credit card
b) Air Canada Cancels the flight and gives me a voucher for $1,000
c) I rebook another flight totaling $1,250 and pay an adcol amount of $250 on my Visa (Total paid now on my Visa is $1250)
d) Air Canada then cancels that flight and gives me a voucher for $1250
e) I submit that voucher for a refund in April .. expecting to get my full $1250 back as a refund on my Visa
e) No such luck ... AC only refunds me the $250 adcol ticket amount as they are ONLY looking at the last ticket (item c from above) and they refund the $1000 back to Air Canada voucher form of payment (TP Credit card) .. which is NOT CORRECT/LEGAL They did not even give me access to a voucher for $1,000 to use on a future flight. I am left with nothing! Please keep in mind that Air Canada utilizes an internal credit card (Code TP) to issue any passenger vouchers so in essence they are refunding themselves my portion of the ticket.

I have all the emails that indicate the above has happened to 2 of my refund requests and have forwarded them on the AC on numerous occasions to no avail. Their Customer (dis)Service Department is downright abysmal to deal with as they hide in a subterranean basement somewhere in Winnipeg and only come out every 3 months or so to maybe reply with some generic/form emails. Air Canada's Reservations department is not even allowed to contact them over the phone. If you do get lucky and get an email form them and God forbid you have to reply back .. you almost always have to wait another 3 months for a reply. Just dreadful to say the least!

I have been to all 196 countries in the world, flown on over 4,000 flights on 300+ different airlines and NEVER have I been treated this way ...1000 fold by any airline .. and that includes airlines from North Korea and Afghanistan
Have probably spent 100+ hours on the phone with reservations (they give me the same line about how important my business is and that they are going to work on it. Well its now over 7 months and I have absolutely nothing from them!

I am in the process of opening up a case in Small Claims Court .. has anyone been successful is getting money back from Air Canada via this method?

Please advise

Adam Smith

Refunds are to the original form of payment. From a technical perspective, the original forms of payment for your second booking were (i) your Visa card, for $250, and (ii) the voucher from the first flight, for $1,000.

Again, technically, you should probably have also submitted a separate request to refund the first booking, which should have then wiped out the gift card and refunded $1,000 to your card.

Did you submit such a request before the deadline? If not, I could see them saying that they followed through on their obligation by refunding the booking for which a refund was requested, to the original forms of payment for that booking. I'm not saying that's reasonable, but legal and reasonable aren't always the same thing.

Have you established written correspondence with the people at AC's refund department? If so, if you haven't already done so, you should probably try to lay this out all in one letter/e-mail, complete with PNRs (booking references), to make all the information clear for them in one place. If not, I suggest using the customer service web form to do so.

(You say that you've forwarded things to AC and gotten form letters, but it's not clear whether you've tried to lay everything out comprehensively as I've suggested above. Most of the cases that AC's customer service reps deal with are simple, and if you send things separately, they may be looked at by different people. This isn't a defence of AC's customer service, merely an explanation of how the system works.)

It's unfortunate that you've had such bad results from your interactions with AC thus far, and if you ultimately choose to go to small claims court, I wish you the best. But I would suggest taking another stab at resolving it with AC first as I suspect you're likely to get your money back quicker that way.
I don't understand this. The $1,000 should have gone back to the same voucher as you had previously used, or they should have issued you a new one. Either way, you should have an instrument good for $1,000 with AC.

Have you checked the balance of the original voucher to see whether it has had $1,000 put back on it? Or have they sent you something else?

gary1974

Thanks for the info .. most appreciated! Here is my response to your questions.

Unfortunately I had many bookings with Air Canada on the books in March 2020 .. and subsequently all of them were cancelled by AC, put back on sale a few weeks later and then cancelled again and again. I had a Vancouver to Smithers flight cancelled 7 times, Vancouver to Sandspit 4 times etc
After each and every flight cancellation I kept just the latest voucher number and amounts owing as there was no need to keep track of 4 or 5 previous totally used vouchers from 7 transactions ago.

All voucher refund requests were done on April 13 . the first eligible date to do so!

I did get a tidbit of info from an Air Canada Agent (Vincent) a few months ago and he told me that Air Canada subcontracts all of the voucher and subsequent refunds to a company called "Buyatab.com" This was confirmed by this company when I tried to engage them months ago but they said I needed to go through AC Customer (dis) Service

I literally have hundreds of email correspondence with probably 30 different AC staff (res/ticketing/relations etc) ... and still nothing has been resolved. Based on the email address in the from box .. I have emails from 9 different people in customer service ([email protected], [email protected] .. etc through 9) The CEO Michael Rouseu read a few of my emails but never bothered to reply

One would think that the $1,000 would have gone back to the original voucher number which would give me that capability to use it for future flights which would to totally AOK ... Not a chance .. I have NOTHING!
I keep checking weekly on the status of all my vouchers that I requested a refund for on the AC website in April.. and they all say "Totally Used"
This is just so wrong in so may ways!

How can the people at Air Canada sleep at night knowing what they are doing

In many of my emails to them .. I always say "What if someone owed you thousands of dollars" and they simply refuse to give it back .. what would you do?

I never get a reply back from them on that comment

Like I said I have worked in the travel industry for 40+ years and have never seen this total lack f human decency from any one or company in my life!

On Time Reports

Which website did you use that said your vouchers were "totally used"?

Use this website, scroll down to the bottom of the page and enter the voucher number and pin and it will give you a dollar amount. I would check each and every single voucher I have from flights from March 2020 to see if they are all $0.00 CAD.

https://aircanada.buyatab.com/custom...ada/index.html

gary1974

That is the website URL I check!

Each and every voucher I submitted on April 13th (2 that have not been refunded at all and 2 that have been incorrectly refunded as per this forum" the Air Canada response says ...

"Your Balance is Zero"

To add to my previous reply .. when Air Canada sent me the email stating I was being refunded X dollars to my Visa card and the Y dollar amount ($1,000 from my example above) they listed in the email the AC credit card as "TP..... 4229" as getting the refund. What's funny, and they did this on 2 separate occasions ... the 4229 at the end of TP for the last 4 digits of the Air Canada TP credit card were actually my last 4 digits of my credit card.

The chance of my last 4 digits on my card being the same as the last 4 digits on Air Canada's credit card would be a million to 1

They have never acknowledged this error in any of my hundreds of emails

Gary

canadiancow

Ten thousand to one

gary1974

You must be a math teacher ... lol

Probability = 10 x 10 x 10 x 10 (for 4 digits)

Gary

canadiancow

No, but I've had one.

hoipolloi

Any way to convert a booking made via a rewards program like CIBC Aventura Rewards Travel (booked as an IT/BT fare) to an Air Canada Travel Voucher ?

TTC900Rocket

This is new to me, because as of last night, I was still able to look up the refund status when copying and pasting the case #. This is what I saw earlier tonight when using the start chat feature:

"I'm sorry, this is an automated experience and I'm unable to answer this request. Please contact one of our live agents for assistance." followed by "Call Air Canada".

The previous automated response when one had an open refund case was that agents would not be able to provide additional information other than what the automated message provided.

gary1974

Yes ... Air Canada still does have the option to check on a case number as you allude to. Unfortunately it has been 7 month of BS and shear hell dealing with the Air Canada Customer dis-Service department.

They simply refuse to acknowledge the fact they have made a mistake on my refund(s) and say they owe me nothing when in fact I have 100% proof that they do.
I currently am looking into the Consumer Protection of British Columba as well as the Canadian Transportation Agency to assist with this dreadful issue.

Having been to ALL 196 countries on this earth, flown on over 4,000 flights with over 300 airlines ... I have never been treated or mistreated this badly from any company during my lifetime. I had better service dealing with Air Koryo in North Korea and Kam Air in Afghanistan than I have with Air Canada

Simply shameful that a Canadian company would treat people this way ... I'm embarrassed to be a Canadian at the moment.

Gary

expert7700

Air Canada settled the $25MM lawsuit with the US DoT today.

https://downloads.regulations.gov/DO...tachment_1.pdf

​​ "4.5 million" (with more than half forgiven as they refunded some customers already)

//2 million dollar check going to the US Treasury must really hurt. That's how many hours of gross revenue for AC?

hoipolloi

Paltry amount that is less than what I hoped or expected. But I I'm glad I helped get the ball rolling in getting other people to make formal complaints agains AC, which helped lead to enforcement proceedings by the US DOT.