Covid19: Refund Experiences from Indian Based Airlines
 

taking a cue from ajlondon's suggestion in another thread, lets use this thread to discuss refund experiences on indian based airlines....

i had one ticket booked on uk & about a dozen on ai....i also had one award ticket booked on ai & another on ua using ai miles....finally one more on ey using intermiles....

i called uk in mid march to cancel 5 tickets i had booked on a single pnr....tickets were non refundable but uk processed the refund right away....in 4 days i received the refund, minus the convenience fee....

ai has been much more difficult to deal with....they didn't let me cancel any revenue tickets since they were all non-refundable....managed to do a date change on about half dozen of them....the rest i haven't touched yet since my travel dates are in the next couple of months....

ai gave me incorrect information regarding my redemption ticket....they told me i could only do a date change up till august & had to make the change before my travel date otherwise i would be considered a no-show & would lose all my miles so i went ahead & made a random date change to august....later i learnt that i didn't have to make a date change before my travel date & the ticket validity is 12 months....now ai refuses to help saying that i have already made a date change so they won't change the date again....

as far as the ua ticket is concerned, ai first refused to acknowledge that ua had cancelled the flight....when i told them to check again then they came back & said i was not entitled to a refund since its not ai's fault that ua cancelled the flight....i can either get a refund after paying 20% penalty as per the original t&c of my ticket or do a one time date change depending on award availability with ua....also, i had booked 4 tickets using 240k miles total for my family under a single pnr so i have to use the miles for the same people....i can't use the miles for myself even though the miles all came from my account....

intermiles first refused to refund the miles, stating that the ey ticket was non-refundable, even after ey cancelled the flight....but a few days later ey changed its refund policy so i got in touch with intermiles again....this time they agreed to refund & i got the miles back in about 7 days....its been 6 weeks since then but i still haven't received the convenience fee back....

i finally decided to cancel this reservation & lose out on the 20% miles since its unlikely that my family will be able to take advantage of the date change option....i spoke to ai last week & they said they are unable to cancel the reservation on the phone & i need to send an email to get the reservation cancelled....so i did that....a couple of days ago i received a reply stating that they cannot cancel any reservation that has a date beyond 31st may....i replied that i wanted to cancel as per the original t&c of my ticket....today i received a reply that they can't do anything till the 1st of june so i should get in touch with them after that....also, its almost impossible to get in touch with their service center these days....the toll free number asks you to call a gurgaon based number which in turn is always busy....

spoke to intermiles a couple of days ago as well....now they tell me etihad is responsible for refunding the convenience fee....i called them out on that saying that it was not etihad that charged the fee....also, the cancellation email i received from intermiles clearly stated that the fee will be refunded shortly....i was put on hold while the agent checked with a supervisor....she then claimed that the fee will be refunded but it can take upto 30 days....i told her its been way longer than that....she then said its 30 working days....i said its been longer than that as well since the ticket was cancelled over 2 months ago....she claimed that she will escalate the case to their refund department....i'll give them a few more weeks before calling again....

Had booked a ticket for MAA - LHR - YYZ and back on BA thru Cleartrip. Normally avoid booking thru OTA's, but went with it this time, as i was sitting with a 15,000 wallet credit from Cleartrip. Onward part of the journey was completed and had a return scheduled for Mid March. When things started collapsing by end Feb/ early March, tried reaching out to Cleartrip to change my travel dates. Could never get thru to their call center. Ended up buying a one way ticket YYZ - DXB - MAA and getting back. BA ultimately cancelled the flight i was originally scheduled for.

Post getting back around mid March, I managed to finally get thru to Cleartrip and initiate a refund request for the same. Now sign of any refund from them till date. Whenever i email them , i get a standard reply saying they're awaiting word from the airline.

Pretty much the same boat as quarryking. Booked on AFKL for BOM-CDG-FCO and FCO-AMS-BOM for Mar 30-Apr 7. First got in touch with Yatra, who I bought the ticket from, via HDFC Smartbuy, on March 8, when AF cancelled one of the shorter legs, but they ignored me for about eight weeks. Eventually all legs were cancelled by the airline, of course.

Also got in touch with AF, on the phone and email. First time, the phone rep said I could choose between a voucher/credit shell, which would be issued "soon", or a refund, which would "take very long". Second time, they said my refund was being processed and I would hear back. After I then followed up on email a few times, they got back on email and said I needed to deal with Yatra (which they had also said when they replied to my first email to them, about two weeks after I sent it, around mid March).

I also tried filling in their refund request form online, and they replied saying I needed to deal with Yatra.

After repeated badgering of Yatra (who started responding with idiotic auto-replies and template delaying emails around April 20) they have produced an RA number, as proof that they have initiated the refund process. Their phone lines have been off for the duration.

No doubt Yatra will come back in a few weeks/months and say I'll need to accept a credit shell - which I'm prepared to do at this point. I believe those have a validity of a year, and if unused by the end of that period, they are refundable.

Apols if above is off topic and not about Indian airlines, but I was going by the mention of BA (and Etihad and UA earlier in the thread). And it involves an Indian OTA.

still getting the run around from ai....called their customer service again today & was told that the frequent flyer department is still closed so they can't cancel this ticket....also, they said that the advisory they are following as of now is that all tickets for travel up till 30th april will be protected....i told them its well beyond 30th april now so what happens to my ticket & the agent didn't have an answer....she said they are all working from home & no supervisor is available so she can't even reach out to anyone for help....she did however confirm that she would get someone to call me back within 24 hours....under normal situations i have never received a call back from ai so i'm definitely not expecting one during these unusual times....i have a feeling i'm going to have a tough time getting my 240k miles back....

so surprisingly i did get a call back from the flying returns department this morning....but they continue to give me the run around....the agent kept repeating that united has to refund the miles to me so i have to contact them & tell them to do that....i told him i had already spoken to united & they confirmed that the original booking source has to offer the refund....they cannot do so since its not their ticket....but the flying returns agent refused to acknowledge that....just stuck to his point that ai can't do anything since its a united flight....

i've sent in a bunch of emails to flying retuns....lets see what they come up with now....

Cleartrip have very shrewdly removed the phone based customer support service option for Flight ticket cancellations. So the only way to raise a query is via email now and with no option for escalating the issue as well in any way. Certainly the last time ever to book with any of these OTA's.

I was pleasantly surprised at how easy it was to cancel a couple of international hotel bookings on Cleartrip, though. One phone call with a helpful executive, back in late March, was all it took. The bookings were fully refundable, and they made no fuss about the cancellation. And their usual fees were waived.

Used to be a fairly easy deal with them until all of this hit.

AI has announced a new (mostly good) major waiver extension -

http://www.airindia.in/images/pdf/Wa...-converted.pdf
http://www.airindia.in/images/pdf/Wa...-converted.pdf

They haven't said if they will refund people who have spent dineros to adjust (or cancel) their tickets thanks to AI's previous awful policy. Allowing routing changes without fees is a very good thing. So they're essentially trying to hold on to your money without looking like aholes. A much better policy.

slightly good but still sucks....in these uncertain times, a lot of airlines are allowing multiple changes, however ai continues to stick to its 'one time change' policy....

One step at a time. :) You're asking for AI to be logical, think ahead and care about customers all at the same time. They can barely manage to do a quarter of one of those things at one time.

We should take extending the validity of the tickets till 2021 and free route changes as a small win.

i'm still struggling with getting a refund based on the original t&c of the ticket....they refuse to refund even when i'm ready to take a hit of the 20% cancellation fee....

then they tell me that even though they have extended their change policy till 24th august, i cannot make a change without penalty now because i have already made a change from march to august for my flight that was cancelled....i told them that the changed flight still falls before 24th august but they are sticking to their 'one change only' bit....

That's AI for you. Hope that bungling AI revises their rules before your new flight date. :)

Also I think this was a good lesson to all of us to change certain behaviours... from not booking through OTAs to airlines we chose to fly with to hotels we chose to deal with to how we take holidays etc.etc. etc.