Refund Madness
 

Wondering if any one can offer any suggestions.

I booked a flight from Orange County via Houston to O'Hare in mid November on a refundable ticket (which is documented on the receipt I received via email). I arrived at SNA, and the flight to Houston was delayed due to ATC issues in Houston. The gate agent advised that I find another way to Chicago, I agreed, told him I was moving to another flight, he noted that in my record, I also then called the elite line from the UA flight I boarded, and they said that the fare would be refunded to my credit card.

Following all of this, a credit showed up under cancelled flights versus a credit. I email CO a week ago, and just today got a response from them, saying the following:



I reviewed the record in which you are requesting a refund and I show that the flight from Orange County departed 30 minutes late and was never canceled,therefore, you are not entitled to a refund. You may use the ticket towards the purchase of another ticket up to one year from the date of issue. I will be happy to waive the change fee based on the information from your comments. The record has been documented accordingly. Sorry for any misunderstandings.

Thanks for choosing Continental Airlines.

Not entitled to a refund? If you cancel a flight, before departure, at the advice of the CO employee in the airport, and confirm that with their elite desk via phone 15 minutes later, since when does that not entitle you to a refund on a refundable ticket? This is really frustrating, any suggestions on how to further figure this out would be appreciated.

I am still waiting for a refund of $1400 for a flight I cancelled online within the 24-hour-of-booking window over a month ago.

Trying to call Continental Refunds is a joke. It's always "heavy call volume" and it doesn't even let you hold, it just kicks you out!

I canceled one ticket within 24 hours online as well. However, there are two buttons, one is cancel ticket, the other is refund ticket. I had to call up, and they cheerfully refunded it, but it wasn't obvious to me the first time I did it. I did cancel another ticket after that, and did what the agent had mentioned, and it was refunded promptly.

The pessimist in me thinks they do this programming on purpose, as many people may just think they got refunded

Regarding the first post above, if it was a refundable ticket and you did not use that ticket then it should not matter that you did or did not cancel it. You are entitled to a refund. That's the whole point of purchasing a refundable ticket. I have found that since most fares are not refundable many agents don't notice when they are asked to refund a refundable ticket. Perhaps you need to call/write again.

I've been waiting since October 21 for a refund to show up for one of my MSP-LGW itineraries I cancelled. According to CO, it was processed and issued on November 1. The latest response from CO was to call the refunds department.

Considering it took almost a week to get that e-mail reply, I had already given up and disputed the charge with AMEX. If you're still within the dispute window with your CC, it's always an option if you're not making progress with CO directly.

Yes, I have been wise to this trick for a while - I did hit the REFUND button, but still nothing.

I've disputed with CC company. Ridiculous.

This is a serious problem with continental.com!!

Call the credit card company and simply dispute the charge. It's far more effective and it's quick.

Scott

Same thing happened to me for a MSY-IAH booking last month. Cancelled in 24h, never refunded. Disputed. Never had this problem on the old CO.com (and definitely never had this problem when they let you hold a booking for 24h!)

Silly question - were all segments on the Eticket refundable, or just the one you're asking be refunded?

Both segments, the fare qouted was $286.00 with taxes, SNA/ORD refundable, I have the receipt.

I had multiple failures to issue a refund when requested (using the REFUND button) within 24 hours via co.com a few months ago ... resulting in an unexpectedly large credit card bill.

BUT ... when I called (plat line) and went over the charges with them, reading off the ticket numbers, the CSR pulled up the ticket histories and issued refunds over the phone. It was annoying; but easy to fix.

So maybe you just need a ticket number and the right CSR?

Might want to change you name Mr. "Giles" to another handle.

So, apparently the only way to get this stuff resolved is to email Customer Service. Today I received this email:

Thank you for contacting Continental Airlines Customer Care regarding a refund for record ABCDEFG for $1405.00. I have looked into this matter and the refund has been requested and is waiting processing. You should see this refund on your next months billing cycle.

Thank you for choosing Continental Airlines, it is our pleasure having you on board and we hope to serve you again soon.

Thank you,

Seymour Butts
Customer Care Manager

However, it's rather disappointing and not at all cool that it takes over a month and a couple of emails to get money back that I should have had refunded within 48 hours in the first place.

^ to getting my money back finally and :td: :td: :td: to the process

Well, got another email today, apologizing, said that they neglected to realize the fare was refundable when they spent all their time trying to verify if my claim about the ATC delay was true, and said that they'll process a full refund.

This took about 5 hours of my time, multiple phone calls to CO, what's up with this - I'd expect this sort of stuff from UA or US, but not CO. Very disappointing, but I appreciate the agent admitting the mistake honestly, and fixing the problem.

I purchase refundable tickets quite often; especially if I am more than 50% sure my travel plans might change. Recently, on a full Y coach ticket (fare basis YB) I was stuck in traffic headed for EWR with a dead cellphone and a livery driver who refused to let me either use his or plug mine into his cigarette lighter...anyway, I digress. While still in security I heard the final boarding call along with my name announced - the ultimate walk of shame - and halfway to the gate (for some reason Phoenix flights seem to always operate out of gates at the extreme ends of the concourses) I heard the dreaded announcement that the flight had been closed to boarding. A quick about-face and I was in the PC and on my laptop and lo and behold found a cheap one-way fare on the next flight which I immediately purchased. I then approached the PC concierge about refunding the unused ticket and was told to contact the Elite toll-free number later as the flight was in post-departure and was still under gate-control so nothing could be done at that point. So I relaxed in the PC, boarded my flight, arrived home, and then called the Elite desk to issue the refund. The representative was very puzzled. It seemed my fully refundable Y fare ticket had been flagged by the airport as a no-show and was made ineligable for re-issue or refund. I was placed on hold for almost 15 minutes while the agent contacted a specialty desk to "undo" what the GA at EWR had done to make my $545 ticket worthless. I'm sure that was not the first time that happened and will probably not be the last. Apparently not all GA's realize that Y=refundable=no-show, no-worries! Oh well, still love CO. Oh, and did I mention that I got an upgrade on that ridiculously low last-minute fare? :)