PiperAtGatesofDawn

Oh I'm not holding my breath.

For my revenue tickets they've said 45-60 business days!

Keyser

its been over 60 days for a number of my revenue tickets....now its just pointless following up....it will come when it has to come....

Keyser

i had gone to the ministry of civil aviation at rajiv gandhi bhavan for a meeting last week....after i was done with my meeting, i decided to walk into the air india city office since its in the building next door....i figured i would try to get some clarity on all my refunds that have been pending, some for almost a year now....

the office was fairly empty....there seemed to be more staff than customers....i decided to go to the flying returns department first & then to ecommerce after that....

there was only one person ahead of me in line so i didn't have to wait more than a couple of minutes for my turn....i gave the agent all my various ticket numbers for all the redemption flights i had booked in 2020....this all came to a grand total of 690k miles....all of them were initially scheduled between march 2020 - august 2020 & all of them were eventually cancelled by ai....the agent took a little bit of time to calculate if any miles were set to expire before offering me the refund options....he also had to go through the latest rules since they had changed a bunch of times....initially only a one time date change was allowed, then sector changes were permitted provided the flight region was the same & now they were allowing refunds on all cancelled flights....he finally gave me 2 options....i could either hold onto the ticket & use it for the same passenger on the same sector (or region) by 31/12/2021 or i could get a full refund with a certain number of miles expiring soon....i opted for the refund since i was unsure of being able to use the tickets this year....the calculations came to 169,077 miles expiring by 31/03/2021, 257,970 expiring on 31/08/2021 & the remaining 262,953 would be valid till 31/05/2022....

he then told me i had to go to the ecommerce department & get them to issue the refund for the taxes....once that was initiated i would have to write to flying returns to process the miles refund....i told him i had been trying to get a refund for almost a year now so i had no confidence in this process working....he told me to go to ecommerce to get them to start the refund process & then come back to him after that....so i went to the ecommerce department on the same floor....the queue there was pretty short as well....just 2 people before me....when my turn came i gave them the details for all my redemption flights as well as all my revenue flights....the agent took down the details one by one for all 8 redemption tickets & 11 revenue flights....she claimed that all these refunds had been approved however they did not have my bank details to issue the refund....i asked her why they would need my bank details since they had my credit card details to issue the refund back to the original mode of payment....she still insisted that the bank details were required & that was the reason for the delay....she asked me to email the bank details which i did right away in front of her....she confirmed the email had been received & i would now get the refund in 6-8 working days....

after this i went back to the flying returns department & told them the refund process had been initiated by ecommerce....the agent then gave me an email address & asked me to send an email with all my ticket details asking for a refund....i did so in front of him & he called someone to check if the mail had been received....once he confirmed that it had, he said i should get the miles back in my account in 2-3 days....

i left the office without anything having been refunded to me & with lots of promises of 2-3 days & 6-8 working days....i somehow felt i had wasted 2 hours of my life without getting the desired result....

yesterday i got 3 emails from the flying returns department....the first one informing me that 169,077 miles have been refunded to me with an expiration date of 31/03/2021, the second that 257,970 miles have been refunded to me with an expiration date of 31/08/2021 & the last that 262,953 miles have been refunded to me with an expiration date of 31/05/2022....i logged into my flying returns account & all the miles are reflecting correctly....

this morning i got a bunch of emails from ecommerce regarding all the refunds for my revenue tickets....in total inr 199,982 has been refunded to me for 11 tickets....the strange bit is that they refunded the amount to my credit card & not my bank account....so the explanation that the refund was delayed because they didn't have my bank details was just a convenient excuse....

either way, i'm surprised & happy i got all my money & miles back....it definitely took a while but i'm glad i made the effort to walk into the ai office last week....now i just need to figure out how to use the refunded miles that are expiring next month....

oliver2002

Well, the old rule is that to get anything done with govt offices you have to go there in person

Strange that they still have offices where you can see a person to get things done

Keyser

they do....filled with people who have been working with ai for over 30-40 years....they all need to put on their glasses, stare at the screen for a couple of minutes, type something incorrectly on the keyboard one finger at a time before calling someone younger over to their desk to help them do what needs to be done....

PiperAtGatesofDawn

Despite the pandemic and potential threat to life.... for my FT brethren... I volunteer to help!!!

Keyser

i will reach out to you if help is required....

PiperAtGatesofDawn

My experience... I followed up with them about 20 times on the phone. Of course even though you go through the IVRS asking for Flying Returns... the calls always go through to general reservations and they take your details and promise the FR team will call you back within 1-2 hours... which of course they very very very rarely do.

My miles had expired in Oct 20... so I didn't have much hopes of getting them back.... but I persisted because I need to book the same route in a couple of months.

I received one call back (after about 10-12 calls) and during the call the FR person told me that my ticket was lying in limbo and they weren't processing refunds because I hadn't sent an email to flying returns - even though on 2 separate occasions earlier the FR people had told me that refund was being processed and I would get the money & miles back in 2 days time.

So I asked him to instead use my miles and taxes to book my new tickets. He agreed to do that and just as he started the phone got disconnected... &^#$%&^%#&

After another 10 calls or so I finally got connected to a FR person who helped my book my new tickets.

So thankfully, I didn't have to find out what happens to refunds for expired miles - and then fight to get them back.

But everyone should remember - you're entitled to a full refund if the airlines changes they flight schedule by more than 60 minutes! Even though AI knew this - when I had initially tried to cancel my ticket... they kept insisting that since I was cancelling at the last minute I wouldn't get any refund and there would be plenty of penalties... only when I pressed that they are lying to me and I want to speak to a supervisor did they put me on hold for 10 minutes and come back to say that I would be allowed to cancel my ticket.

superboi

Amazing effort to track everything and get it all back! BTW the expiring miles might see another extension...AI/FR has been extending the validity of expiring miles 3 months at a time since last year...in December they extended it to March and given flying hasn't fully resumed I strongly feel they will extend again till June. I also have a bunch of miles expiring in March and am banking on this extension to be able to use them since I don't see any leisure travel till June at least.

For all that is said about them, these offices are actually incredibly helpful and any number of times more useful than AI's phone or email customer care. I have visited the office that Keyser mentioned more than once - on one occasion they found and booked me a reasonably priced routing (AGX-DEL) that wasn't showing up on AI's online booking system in oneway and super overpriced in multicity. Another time I had to correct a name mismatch between passport and ticket which the custcare folks were asking me to cancel and rebook - they were quite kind and just reissued without charging me a penny.

TravellingMan

Is there any specific email address I should use if I want to get refund for a booking made on the AI app? I tried the "mobilebookings@airindia.in" address. Got no acknowledgements, no response so far. Is that how it works with AI? With US carriers one gets an automatic acknowledgement and a case number to deal with.

Keyser

'[email protected]' handles all refunds....

PiperAtGatesofDawn

You should email [email protected] as well. You should get an auto acknowledgement from them but no case number.

If AI starts tracking issues with case numbers they will be in real real trouble.

TravellingMan

Thanks for that. I have sent them a message too. So far no acknowledgment.

Keyser

they take their own sweet time to reply....sometimes it takes months....

oliver2002

AI is allowing automated refunds again: