Cathay Cancelled Flight - Refusing to Refund.......
 

Dear Flyertalk Team,

Requesting your expertise and guidance here please.......

On May 26 was booked on Cathay to go to Sydney - obviously via HK. My flight was cancelled allegedly due to bad weather even though other Cathay flights were then departing albeit 4 - 5 hours late. Cathay declined to accommodate me on way of these flights thereby ensuring I would definitely miss my Sydney connection and / or the last Qantas HK connection if Cathay decided to relocate me to Qantas on the last flight - if I made it to HK......

Now as Cathay had the week prior cancelled my flights to Manila and no other same day flights were available to be booked I had to stay in Shanghai and cancel my Manila trip. Cathay offered a refund in full as they thankfully should.

However as I had critical meetings in Sydney on Wednesday 27th May, I had to get to Sydney. As such I booked a one way ticket on Qantas as the Cathay re ticketing office at Pudong Airport had a line up on 40 plus people deep and 1 staff member serving. Now Cathay is declining to either refund the Qantas ticket or half the Cathay ticket.

I don't understand how Cathay can try to make me pay for a service I haven't consumed or alternatively not refund me for the cost of the one way Qantas ticket.

I have now been dealing with Cathays online feedback department for a month now without success.

I welcome your feedback and guidance as to how I should proceed from here.....

Many thanks,

Travel insurance.

I agree, whatever happens, Travel insurance is a must.

How about trying to answer the OP's question instead of lecturing him on what to do? Also, not everyone has travel insurance (please no more lecturing on how it is the OPs fault for not having it)

OP - call Cathay

OP

1. By not speaking with CX, you leave yourself open to CX saying that they would, of course, have accommodated you by rebooking onto Qantas and therefore that they need not refund you anything. As to the new ticket you purchased, that is your decision and has nothing to do with CX.

2. Nonetheless, I would visit a CX ticket office at a non-busy time. Bring your e-ticket receipt and explain in cool, calm and collected terms exactly what happened. It is possible that you can at least obtain a credit for future use for the value of your unflown segment (which will not likely be 1/2 of the ticket price).

3. It is far from "lecturing" for others to raise the travel insurance issue. First, OP may have travel insurance and be focused in the wrong place. Second, others gain valuable insight when problems repeat themselves. If OP does not have travel insurance, having had two recent tough experiences, perhaps he will obtain it. Others in OP's situation may choose to purchase it. Indeed this would have been easy if OP had travel insurance. Presuming relatively common terms (always worth reading carefully), he would have been reimbursed for his Qantas ticket and the insurance carrier would deal with CX.

Agree. A 40 sth line is not an excuse for you not to agree IN ADVANCE with CX i.e. before departure of the flight...

Reason: After the departure you are no-show... It would be difficult for CX to refund you as it would be very difficult for them to differentiate real mis-connected passenger like you or those no-show simply trying to take CX advantage by roaring...

Now I guess the best OP might get is to have CX waive the no-show and rebooking fee... But this would still need substantial argument and giving them quite a lot of supporting documents...

The flight is cancelled by CX... on what basis can they charge the no-show and/or rebooking? :confused:

If the ticket is an ex-HKG one, I would go for consumer council and/or small claim tribunal.

Assuming HK law is applicable, subject to any exemption clause in CONDITIONS OF CONTRACT (which i don't have time to read in detail yet), OP has a good case against CX.
OP has the duty to mitigate - if it is reasonable that OP thinks that there is insufficient time for him to wait the 40+ people while still be able to "rebook" or "protect" to a flight that get him to Sydney on time, he can't just sit there wait and claim for the damages of the missed important meeting. What OP doing has nothing wrong.

But shouldn't insurance be the simpler and easier solution?

I think clause 10.2.2 of the CoC comes into play:

http://downloads.cathaypacific.com/c...ge.pdf#page=24

Can 10.2.2.2 apply to entitle OP to travel on Qantas?
Or since no "re-route" has occurred (only a re-issue?) OP only has rights to the next CX flight?

If the former than OP has claim against CX for contractual breach, the liquidated damage being the cost of the QF one-way ticket and reinstatement of the return leg (which is now flown out of sequence).

But the problem is 10.2.2 applies only if OP has spoken with CX/KA staff and asked to be put on the (presumably) pvg-syd flight. In other words CX paid the QF fare but not reimbuse OP- correct me if I am wrong, i thinl that CX can get the QF seat at a much lower price than.. so it is a bit hard to get CX pay for the QF flight - unless OP argues that the 40+ queue make it not "within reasonable time", which i think is a difficult argument in front of a judge.

Can 10.2.3 kicks in to claim for refund?

Ah - that has to be a re-route! But yes it depends whether OP tried to ask for it.

I'm afraid as I see it you simply no showed on the CX flight. Had you spoken to CX and asked them to send you on the direct QF flight you may have a case, but by simply buying your own ticket and not informing them you weren't going to make their flight i think you ruined any chances.

As others have said, this is what travel insurance is for.

But CX cancelled his flight. There was no flight to make. A refund is definitely owed, but the trickier part may be restoring the return segment (there's no reason for them not to do it though unless they're just being jerks -- again, they cancelled the flight), and them potentially calculating the refund as the round-trip fare paid less the one-way fare, which might even be negative! But certainly OP should be entitled to cancel/refund the entire CX itinerary if he so chooses, and then just buy a new ticket back from SYD to PVG.

They cancelled that particular flight, but there were other flights to be re-accommodated on. I agree with everything you're saying in principle, that had the OP asked CX to cancel and refund the ticket they should have done, but in just buying another ticket and disappearing they effectively became a no-show and CX have no obligation to refund them. They may choose to do so out of goodwill, but that's all imo.

Not sure. OP tried (we don't know whether he really successfully raised such a claim to CX PVG) to get on the QF flight.

Obviously there's space given he subsequently was able to purchase a ticket out of revenue.

It's his option (per 10.2.2)

CX failing to honour the exercise of the option is a contractual breach, the liquidated damages being the reimbursement of OP's QF fare.

This (bolding) is the crux of the matter. It is on CX to accommodate the OP's request from the options provided by the CoC.

My interpretation of the original post is that the OP requested the options but never informed CX which they would like to take. By doing that they simply became a no show.