AI Coronavirus Flight Changes
 

I have a flight on AI next week that I have so far been unable to change my flight for (we've postponed our India trip until August). The online booking is allowing me to cancel the flight minus a 5000 INR fee, but isn't AI doing anything like waiving the fees or allowing free changes due to the current chaos? I've tried calling their US number and have had no success getting through.

Hiya

AI is allowing a free date change, but I'm guessing this would only work if you call them up as the website would follow standard rules.Further to our email on date change waiver for travel period to India between 16Mar20 to 15Apr20, please note that

1. Free date change waiver for Indian National
2. Free date change waiver for Foreign National
3. Free change means any change of date/flight for travel commencing on or before 31March 2021, within the ticket validity. For any change of date/flight or routing, in case, the same fare level is not available or in case the new routing is priced more than the current one, differential fare will be charged.
4. Cancellation / Refunds : refunds as per fare rule is applicable . Full refund is no applicable .

Thanks! I guess I'll just have to keep trying to call. I'm getting kind of worried I'll just be out of luck for changing dates if I can't get through on the phone. Hopefully the US # on their website is accurate, because it just won't ring.

Hugely dk-ish move by Indian airlines not to allow free cancellations at least for a few weeks like the other airlines around the world are doing. Even the govt. or DCGA doesn’t seem to care.

Some how it’s perfectly fine for them to cancel any flight they want due to coronavirus... but you can’t. And they’ve cancelled plenty.

So if you had an event you needed to attend an event in Indore on 28th Mar that has been cancelled. You will still have to postpone your trip though the reason to visit Indore for that event that is no longer there, otherwise pay heavy cancellation fees!

Or if the organizer of the event has said we’ll postpone it by a few months and hasn’t offered new dates you still have to postpone your flight today to a random date in the future without knowing when you’ll actually need to travel.

Kind of apathetic and aholic behaviour by these airlines during an unprecedented crisis.

Dormant Account
 

Hi,

I have a bunch of Flying Return miles expiring end of this month. I tried to book travel but they are telling me that my account is dormant so I have to travel on a paid ticket to make the account active before booking. I cannot travel during this period. Is there any way to make the account active without travel by transferring miles or something? Please advise. Thank you.

Probably not.

Since the only way to keep your account active is to have one flight credited to FR every 12 months, the only way to reactivate it would be the same.

So whether or not it’s worth reactivating it is dependent on how many miles are expiring.

Note... AI can cancel your account if it is dormant for 24 months.

Also wrong thread for this post. Mods should move this to the AI FR thread.

not all indian airlines are doing this....vistara allowed me to cancel all 4 upcoming flights without any penalty....even intermiles is allowing cancellations on all their bookings....managed to cancel a booking made through them on ey....

ai on the other hand is only allowing date changes for the majority of their destinations....over the next couple of months i had around 10 domestic flights, one international trip each to paris, london & dubai....they are not allowing cancellations for either one of them....only date changes & that too just once....since all but these are work trips, i'm not out of pocket for any of them but then again, its completely unprofessional on their part to pull something like this....

Glad to see UK is not behaving aholic like AI & 6E.

Intermiles would allow it as long as the operating or ticketing carrier allows it. So it’s really not any skin of their back.

And while I understand the reason airlines want to hold on to cash right now, a simple way to fix this is to allow cancellations through April 20 and offer a voucher to redeemed in the next year or so. That’s far more reasonable.

actually, intermiles does not allow any changes on cancellations on mileage tickets booked on etihad....etihad allows refunds after deducting 10% of the miles but intermiles won't allow any changes....they have relaxed their own policies to allow the refund at this time....

Yes Intermiles has relaxed their policies sure. But what I meant was they aren’t really losing on anything as long as the ticketing/operating airline is willing to cancel. And in this case EY was.

All that Intermiles has lost is the cost for the administrative effort to refund the miles. Made even easier with the carrier being EY.

It’s the airlines who are actually losing money right now that are still willing to fully refund tickets through April. That needs to be appreciated and applauded. Especially when you have the likes of all the other Indian carriers showing their true colours.

IF Intermiles fully refunded say an AI booking... now that would be something.

Are you based in London? If so, the Brentford offices are very helpful

intermiles hasn't lost out at all....they haven't even refunded the convenience fees, which was around inr 8k per ticket....their email said the miles will be refunded & they will revert on the convenience fees soon....the miles were refunded immediately but i would be very surprised if they were to refund the fee....

It looks like G8 heard my (our) rants.

They’ve come up with the best policy yet. You don’t even have to call and cancel your flight your right now. Just be a no show and use your PNR for a 100% credit towards any G8 flight within a year! I think it’s terrific that G8 has done that.

I’m not very confident that G8 will be here in a year’s time. Especially given how many pilots etc. they’ve axed and cancelled all INT flights. But still very very good move on their part.

Lets see when the rest stop behaving like aholes.

I’m sure they will refund that. They must have a backlog and are going through the refunds slowly. And it might be potentially tied to getting some money or credit acknowledgement from EY as well.

lets see....i'm just glad i got my miles back....