SAN_Finn

Still have not seen a refund on cancellation from Feb 17th.

ffay005

I don't think you need to worry. They're really really slow, but you'll get your refund eventualy. They have 100.000 refunds in the queue and they handle them manually, so it will take time.

The Finnish state owns 55 % of AY, and they have a legitimate business (in normal times), so there should be little risk of going bankrupt.

kauppias

Refund requested April 6 refunded to the card I used on April 20. not sure if refunds are based on status or not but this was fairly quick 👍 thanks to currency change I made nearly a 20€ profit 😁

florens

How long does a refund take if handled manually? It seems unrealistic for it to take so long.

UKtravelbear

I cancelled 12th March. Tihs was because AY cancelled the flight not because I just could because of the situation

Am OW Saphire / BA Silver. Asked last week in an online chat (had a query with another booking) how much longer and was told another couple of weeks on top of the month they initialy quoted.

Appreciate they are busy but they really should be processing these in the order the refund was requested

lkrt

I don't think it's unreasonable to give priority to airline's own top tier customers as they also have priority customer service phone numbers and such.

DALtoAAL

I have to give some credit to AA here; it took them exactly 7 days to process my refund request. And I'm guessing that their refund request volume must be significantly larger than AY's.

UKtravelbear

I'm still waiting for an AA refund requested on the 5th April. Spoke to them today and could not give an indication of how much longer it would be.

UKtravelbear

TBH in the present circumstances I do think that is unreasonable. You might disagree but they have already breached the deadline they themselves said they would process redunds in when I originally cancelled.

R2

I am AY Plat and have several pending refunds, the first one I filed on 25 Feb. Nothing so far.

What annoys me even more is that one of my cancellations was not for a full 'coronavirus' refund but according to the ticket T&C's. The day I cancelled this I also requested a Cancellation certificate for travel insurance claim. This was on 14 March. Both CS on the phone and the email I received as acknowledgement for the the certificate request confirmed this would sent to me within one week. I have not received the refund nor the certificate so far.

I'm puzzled to read reports here of some people getting their refunds (whether money or voucher) within a couple of weeks. Why does AY not process them more or less in order of receiving them.

xkkpafi

It puzzles me too and seems most unfair. It seems that those who were forced to cancel the first or are not located in Finland are waiting the longest. At the moment Finnair has effectively frozen on my entire year's private travel budget.

lento

I am also puzzled about some reports of quick refund. However, I would not say "located in Finland " or "status" has priority. I am located in Finland and AY Plat but yet to receive refund applied on third week of March.

tulokas

It looks like calling to CS makes the refund process a lot faster... 🤔

WilcoRoger

As a data point, I cancelled an AirBnB booking, the money was back on my CC within 12 hours - and that's because of AX FIN. ABnB confirmed within the hour that they credited back the money. I don't think that ABnB has less cancelled bookings than AY...

Often1

There is no reason why the refund of an unflown ticket which has been paid for with a single credit card (likely the vast majority of transactions) is not fully automated and thus handled in short order. The entitlement to a refund is established by data held by the carrie in its system and which a simple algorithm can handle, e.g.
1. Is the ticket refundable by fare ruiles?
2. Is the ticket refundable because the carrier has cancelled?
3. If either or both 1 and 2, what was the amount paid?
4. Payment form used becomes credit form used.

But, there is no incentive to be efficient, especially now. Cash is king and if a carrier can hold it 2 days longer than it otherwise could, that is better (for the carrier).