Tobias-UK

BA Holidays has been doing exactly that, cancellation and full refunds without requesting.

GumshoeW12

I’m pleased to hear it.

I’m still waiting for a refund for a cruise that was cancelled in March. As are many, many thousands of others. Once it hits 60 days this week I plan to instigate a chargeback.

BA, on the other hand, refunded the taxes, fees and Avios for the flights within 5 days.

Everyone’s having different experiences. Very few travel and holiday providers will come out of this smelling of roses but generally speaking I believe BA has been better than average at paying refunds.

alex67500

Not adding much on the BA side, but indeed my flatmate was told in no uncertain terms that Ryanair would not allow him to fly with them until he settles the "previous debt" if he goes down the S75 route.

On a completely different topic, British Summertime (Hyde Park festival) has been refunding all tickets whilst promising priority access if the headliners were secured for next year. They've gathered a lot of good press about it. I know I was impressed, that's the kind of attitude I would have wanted from airlines. The concert industry can't be in a much better place cash-wise.

alex_b

I absolutely believe a customer service agent would say that to discourage him, but I find it hard to believe that Ryanair would actually do it.

rjn21

Ryanair standard chat bot threatens a ban if s.75 / chargeback is mentioned, per this screen grab.

Covid-19 BA Rebooking/Cancellation/Refund HELP & ADVICE *No Speculation etc*

My colleague received that, scoffed, and charged back by Amex without fear of retribution. In the worst case I would imagine a new email address would be used, assuming they ever wanted to book FR again - which they don’t.

corporate-wage-slave

The point would be that Ryanair would not actually have a debt with the passenger, unless of course Ryanair gave a voucher or refund regardless, and didn't rescind it after the chargeback - and I'm pretty sure Ryanair wouldn't let that slip through the net. The reason for discouraging chanrgebacks is that when they get to a certain level banks will slow down the payment speed, effectively keeping some cash back in the system to cover the current rate of chargebacks. From all we know of Ryanair's operations, this is a red rag to the MOL bull but passengers can't logically be prevented from travelling if there is no underlying debt.

alex_b

That’s amazing! Putting it in writing seems so brazen, clearly they don’t believe any regulator will take action.

Bohinjska Bistrica

Being the only airline I've flown on where you had the impression you were actually inconveniencing all concerned by being on their flight, not really a surprise to see Ryanair resorting to dirty tricks in respect of refunds. What a ridiculous threat that is.

Hopefully such behaviour is reported. Not that Ryanair will care enough to change it without specific threats being issued from the regulator, right enough...
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I'm currently awaiting (well, hoping!) for a cancellation so I can get a refund from BA. Been reading around a lot on this as a result and have to say I've yet to see the threat of a blacklisting from BA.

navylad

I know some companies do blacklist after a chargeback, my only experience of such has been deliveroo and it wasn't hard to evade their blacklist.

The only real circumstance I could imagine BA ever doing this is if someone was a repeat offender to the point that BA believed they were doing it fraudulently, but I suspect you would have to do it a lot for that to happen and I'm not aware of any precedence.

father_ted

As an additional data point, I raised an Amex chargeback against FR when they changed the schedule of a flight I had booked by over an hour, making it useless to me. FR refused a refund, but Amex had the funds back to me within the day. I have had no issues travelling with FR since.

BA have on occasion taken their time to refund me, but I've never had to resort to a chargeback. I haven't needed the cash that badly, so have let it run - but I can imagine those who have lost their jobs will not have the luxury of time. In such a case I'd think it reasonable to raise a chargeback after a week had passed without payment.

DYKWIA

I read somewhere that the vendor gets a flat rate charge each time a chargeback is initiated against them, on top of what is owed. This would be a hefty proportion of a Ryanair fare if true.

Tafflyer

While BA have never been perfect is respect of refunds, I must say that they are the least bad of a very bad bunch right now. I had a BA flight cancelled where was a bit of a hassle to reach somebody for a refund and another which I could cancel easily online, allbeit with the Javascript online. But I also had a flight that I could voluntarily cancel for full value to a voucher because I simply no longer wanted to take it. On balance, probably quite fair given the current situation.

Other airlines however have been from downright evasive to lying. I have one booking not yet cancelled on which I am waiting, but 2 others where airlines have cancelled flights, first said nothing and then refused refunds while offering potentially worthless vouchers. I have not hesitated to use chargebacks for these and both are being handled very professionally by Amex. It's a normal part of the process and turns the burden of proof on the validity of a charge from the consumer to the supplier, or rather the supplier and its credit card processing bank. The only recourse is if you issue a chargeback fraudulently, not just because the airline might not agree with you.

nufnuf77

Exactly the same experience as you, BA were the best dealing with refunds and cancellations (and Qatar as well actually).
LX is the worst, together with AF/LA/LH/Vietjet/AirAsia/JetStar - these all had amex chargebacks initiated against them from me ;-)

Confus

Be very careful if using the word ‘fraud’ anywhere in a chargeback claim. This has very specific meaning in the chargeback sphere, and within BA any cases that go through card schemes as Fraud are investigated further by an internal protection team. If the passenger’s name matches the cardholder record in the case then this is a very obvious warning flag to an airline, for example, and has led in the past to questioning at check-in or even cases being passed to the police.

Cases raised as ‘services not rendered’ or ‘refund not processed’ will not be subjected to this level of scrutiny, and if legitimate will most likely go uncontested with no further consequences.

Of course, there’s no one on this esteemed Forum who would be tempted to decry “Fraudulent BA b*stards stole my money and won’t give it back” because the complex refund queue took a bit longer to process, is there......?

JTnonny

Its easy enough to find out. Just submit a subject access request to the company.