tgj1974

Surprisingly I was told by TA today, that my ticket had now been refunded.

krishansy

I finally managed to speak to their customer service in Germany. Surprisingly, the customer service agent told me that I would receive the refund in 14-21 days!

Dan1113

Still no sign of my refund. Has anyone gotten theirs through yet?

Dan1113

Any update from anyone?

Am tempted to try a chargeback but it makes me nervous given LH group actions the last few months...

flyvinci

Hi Dan, still nothing from my TA. Initial request was over 100 days ago. It has been total chaos at SN since March and they can't cope with the demand. On a regular day they receive about 3000 calls. Last week that number was 55.000 on a particular day... imagine everyone in the office running around and working at their maximum capacity. So I guess we'll all have to wait. I've had refund requests with other airlines and from my experience, SN has been the worst in handling it.

Dutch article with more information on the chaos at SN.

Dan1113

Yikes. Has anyone tried a chargeback and been successful? Has SN been playing the same dirty chargeback tricks as Swiss and LH?

unusualtravelblog

So did nobody receive a refund from SN so far?

I received all refunds from LCC tickets. Nothing from SN or LH...

Tafflyer

If you don’t want to wait, you’ll have to sue them. It’s central orders for all LH Group airlines until bailout/cashflow is secured. LH and LX may well start refunding as they receive access to their respective packages but I suspect SN will take longer. It’s extremely bad behaviour and illegal according to EC261/2004 but since the regulators are at best toothless or at worst complicit Airlines are getting away with it.

ft101

I've posted elsewhere about it, but that is not always the case as I received a refund from Eurowings without any hassle just the other week.

krishansy

1 month back, I had requested refund for a flight (scheduled for 17th June) cancelled by Brussels Airlines. Today, I received the below email:

We have received your refund request and have logged it under the following reference number ______

Rest assured that we are following-up on your refund request. Currently we are experiencing a large volume of similar requests. Brussels Airlines is working hard to provide refunds in a timely manner.

We do, however ask for your understanding that due to the pandemic and difficulties caused by this crisis, refunds may not be processed in the usual timeframe.

Kind regards,

Your Brussels Airlines Refunds Team

Dan1113

Yes, I also got that. On twitter they replied to me today saying my refund hasn't begun yet but linked to the article about the agreed bailout saying it is good news and should bring about progress for the refund.

flyvinci

Remember the pilots strike in May 2018? About 557 SN flights were affected and refunds were still not completed by October... go figure.

Often1

This has nothing to do with technical capacity and everything to do with preserving scarce cash. Refunding an unflown ticket is an easy process.

This is where the location of your credit card issuing bank really matters. As EC 261/2004 entitles one to a full refund to be initiated within 7 days of request, a chargeback if in order on the 8th day. If properly documented with:
1. Copy of Section 8 rebooking rights.
2. E-ticket receipt
3. Notice of cancellation / change
4. Request for refund
5, Acknowledgement, denial or not that no response has been received.

A chargeback should be completed in short order and there is little to do for SN or its merchant acquirer to contest. If one has a UK or US card issuing bank, this is easy. Many banks in Germany, France, and Belgium seem to be ignoring the requirements of the Regulation and there is little one can do other than sue.

None of this would discourage me from the chargeback route. At some point, the merchant acquirers on the Continent may do what they have done in the UK and US and simply force payment. If that happens, it is to your advantage to be in line.

Remember to do everything in writing and to provide the backup with your chargeback so that the package is complete.

ft101

Issuing refunds is in most cases a manual process. Manpower may been halved or worse during the pandemic and refund requests gone off the scale, so there just weren't enough man hours available to do the refunds. One airline gave rough figures (and this is from memory so may not be exactly accurate but the order of magnitude should be there):

4,000,000 refund claims @ 15 minutes each = 1,000,000 man hours.
100,000 man hours for 200 people (50% of usual people trained in that capacity) = 5,000 man hours each.
40 hours per week worked = 125 weeks or well over two years to get through the refunds if they didn't improve their capability, which they have and most are now done in the space of a few months.

It's blinkered to say technical capacity had nothing to do with it, even if cash flow was a major part of the equation.

oliver2002

SN has still disabled the automated BSP link refund for agents, even though LH/LX/OS reinstated it this weekend. While they are probably still flooded with requests, the SN system, although on the same system as the rest of the LHG, is on hold due to the financial situation. Although SN is still completely handled by Mindpearl, LHG could assign back office ressources from intouch and arvato etc if they wanted to.