if i want the refund then i lose 20% miles....i used 60k each for 4 tickets for my family so if i cancel then i'm out 48k miles....

since the reservation was made for 4 people, ai says that i can only re-book in their name, even though the miles came out of my account....also, the reservation was made in august last year so they say i have to use the free date change to travel before august this year....there is no way my family will be traveling by august so i'm basically going to lose 48k miles when i cancel....

ai said their reservations are closed right now so i have to call after the 17th of may to make any changes or cancellations....

Sounds just like AI.

What kind of award booking was it - was it a inter US flight? Single ticket/airline?

inter us return flight in first class on ua, from the east to the west coast....4 passengers booked under the same pnr....

You mean UA First and not first class... @ 60k/pax.

BTW thanks to COVID - I think UA has stopped first class for all transcon flights and even lie flats in J. Something to keep in mind if you’re looking/able to book one of those.

Of course there’s no excuse for AI not refunding these miles. Just terrible terrible people.

yup....ua first....las-iad-las for 60k miles each....

the original t&c of the ticket state that the miles will be refunded if the flight is cancelled....but ai is now refusing to honour that....

UN-FREAKING-BELIEVABLE.. !! but im not surprised, since it's AI..

The other "full service" airline of India arent that far behind though..their policies are getting weirder and weirder.. i had to fight tooth and nail to get my upgrade voucher reinstated.. plat status means zilch to these guys.. and im fairly certain they wont give any extention on any current existing vouchers either.. i have 3 business class tickets expiring in July and I dont think i will be able to use them on time.. their site has been down for a week now on redemption booking.. and their customer service is no help at all..

You should definitely escalate... tweet at HS Puri and Rajiv Bansal and the lot... and make some noise on AirSewa... maybe once things reopen.

AI has certainly sunk to new lows.

i will make all the noise i can but i don't have enough time....my travel is in a little over 2 weeks so that won't give me much time since we have no clue when things will reopen....

I don�t think the time factor applies to your situation or where the world is right now...

you would think that it doesn't but this is ai after all....they make every effort in the world to make life as difficult as possible for their customers....

i have 2 examples, over the last couple of months, of how unethically they behave:

the first was in february when i had to cancel an award ticket....the t&c at the time of booking clearly stated that 10% miles would be deducted in the form of a penalty if i were to cancel....when i called to cancel i was also told by the agent that 10% would be deducted....the ticket was cancelled but i only got 80% miles back....i questioned why & was eventually informed that the penalty is 20%, even though the t&c of the ticket & the agent who cancelled confirmed that it was 10%....i have not received the balance 10% miles back....

the second was in march when the lockdown came into effect....i was supposed to fly del-lhr on the 29th but the flight was cancelled....i started calling ai to cancel this flight even before the lockdown was announced but could not get through to them for a week....on the 26th i finally decided to call their usa number since the indian number wouldn't work....after an hour on hold i finally got through to an agent who told me that ai was allowing a one time change but no refund....since i booked the ticket in august last year, i was told that i could extend the date till august this year....i asked what would happen if i decided to wait & he said that i would have to forfeit all miles if i didn't make the change since it was now 3 days prior to my departure date....so under pressure i gave him a random date for august....now it turns out that i did not have to postpone the ticket at all at that time & could have picked another date 12 months into the future....also, i had the option to cancel & get the miles back according to the original t&c of the ticket....when i called back to ask if i could do that, i was informed that even though the agent gave me bad information, i changed the date once so i cannot do it again....

so basically ai agents give whatever information they want & then their supervisors say 'tough luck'....there is no accountability....so there is every chance that i could wait to cancel this ticket but if it is not done so by my travel date then ai will wash their hands of it....

I was saying you�re not bound by a 2 week timeline. The AI factor will of course remain.

AI and all the Indian airlines� have gone from incompetent and complicated to just plain aholes during the last couple of months. Each of them have been behaving incredibly poorly and the govt. meanwhile did nothing. GoAir was kind of the only exception to this - I guess Vinay Dubey was finally doing some good for passengers.

i know that....but ai being ai, this will take a lot more effort & pain in the as_ to resolve if the flight date comes & goes....specially with this being a redemption on a star alliance carrier....