Originally Posted by 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

Originally Posted by quarryking

They used to have a fairly large AI office in MAA as well, with a dedicated Flying Returns desk manned by staff who actually knew the program and were helpful. It was quite convenient to land up there and give them the boarding pass copies, ticket copies & they'd do the needful.

Been a decade i think since they wound up that Flying Returns desk and for that matter a couple of years since they've wound up that whole AI office as well.

Originally Posted by ft4lyf

Sad that office is gone (The one near the Montieth road intersection ...close to the gigantic kalyana mandapam right?)
Those people were indeed very helpful.

Originally Posted by 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....

Originally Posted by quarryking

Congrats on the AI issue getting resolved finally. Not too trigger anymore Flying Returns nightmares, but have you had any luck in reviving the expired Flying Return miles. I think they used to offer some scheme wherein you could revive expired miles at a lower rate ?

Originally Posted by quarryking

Congrats on the AI issue getting resolved finally. Not too trigger anymore Flying Returns nightmares, but have you had any luck in reviving the expired Flying Return miles. I think they used to offer some scheme wherein you could revive expired miles at a lower rate ?

Originally Posted by oliver2002

AI PR went all out today: https://economictimes.indiatimes.com...w/94451518.cms

The new website for refunds seems to work: https://www.airindia.in/SpecialRefundDrive.htm

I stumbled across it this weekend and just entered the details of an old ticket I had pending (or rather given up): in March 21 my BOM-CCU got cancelled because the WB govt had decided that this sector was only to be operated 3 days a week. (Mo, Wed, Fr). Filled in all the details and this morning I got a response saying that since my ticket was >15 month old they couldn't refund anymore. Not what I wanted to hear, but atleast I got a quick answer.

Originally Posted by seawolf

US DoT fined AI $1.4m for failing to refund airline-cancelled/changed US-itineraries in a timely manner.

https://www.transportation.gov/airco...rder-2022-11-9