jjmpdx

I reached them today about my cancelled flights. They’ll refund me, but it will take 3-5 months to process.

dhuey

That's an example of an airline being unreasonable, and probably in violation of EU law (not sure if EU travel regs. bind Iceland) which requires a refund within 7 days of request after a cancellation.

The OP's situation, however, is not such an example. It's very unfortunate how your mother was unable to get to her flight, OP, but as others have noted, Icelandair is not at all to blame for that. You can't reasonably expect them to do anything more than whatever her ticket conditions require of them (if anything) when she missed the flight that flew, as scheduled.

Often1

Presuming that it is FI which cancelled OP's flights, he is due a reimbursement (refund) under EC 261/2004 (which most certainly applies to FI). The Regulation requires that the refund be initiated within 7 days. On the 8th day, presuming that jjmpd has not heard from FI (or seen from looking at his account) that the refund has been processed, he should initiate a chargeback with his credit card issuer (bank). To make this quicker, he ought to supply or offer to supply a copy of his e-ticket receipt, the cancellation notice, his request for a refund, and then note that more than 7 days have passed and although FI has committed to a refund, none has been forthcoming.

As others note, this is OT to the thread, which deals with a situation in which FI did not cancel a flight, the passenger was not able to travel for reasons having nothing to do with FI, and her travel insurance does not cover the situation.

beyounged

okay just to report back.
I filled in the form provided on their COVID page, having little hopes, on Mar 21st. I explained the situation and still believe the same: yes, the flights are flying, but traveling literally 2 days before the border shut down is virtually impossible, not to mention visa situation once we get back. Also I simply wanted a voucher, not a refund, when people flying literally 24 hours after us could have got it with no questions asked is just plain ridiculous. I completely understand that I had no legal grounds for asking for anything, but the options given by FI is so inconsistent and inhumane that I urged them to give me at least an explanation, if not a voucher.
2 weeks later someone at CS emailed me and apologized for the inconvenience, and said they had cancelled the tax refund and decided to issue both me and my mother vouchers.
another week later, emails came in saying that they were being processed.
yesterday another email came in saying that the voucher application was open, I just had to click on the link to claim it. The webpage says the voucher applciation submission successful.

There is no denying FI did not do anything legally wrong initially for refusing everything. But compared to their competitors, their policies were extremely unreasonable, especially for people flying before Mar 20, who were incidentally impacted the most severely. I think in this case of extremely rapid border changes, offering vouchers is the way to go, as refunds may not be realistically possible. However, I have to give FI CS credit where it is due. I am glad that I finally was able to get a voucher and thank them for actually listening to customer feedback. I will continue to support FI after using this voucher, even though it took a few hours out of my life in this crisis.

Fredd

Thanks for that report. I am currently involved in a similar process after receiving an email from Fl CR last week, and was waiting for it to be finalized before posting.

Once I clarified that they were offering travel vouchers good for three years from date of issue, I immediately replied that we would be very pleased with that.

Interestingly, their courteous reply of confirmation included a copy to the individual at US DOT, where I had made a complaint.

The only issue holding it up now is that I've learned it's much harder to cancel a credit card charge back than it is to make it during the current circumstances. I've spent several hours on the phone before I can get to a Chase rep, and their only explanation is that it has to be handled by the individual to whom my complaint has been assigned.

In any event, I like you have strongly criticized FL, but I will sing their praises when we finally have our vouchers in hand. IMHO they have done the right thing, and the three-year time frame is generous.

elkue

I have a round trip booked with FL for July 4th. I emailed them 30 days ago with some questions about the trip and haven't heard anything yet. Has anyone had luck reaching them recently?

Often1

What sort of questions? I would not expect to hear back with answers which are not pre-packaged and likely on the website.

Fredd

Customer Relations haven't replied yet to emails I've sent them over the past 10 days regarding the promised credit I mentioned above. I finally got through again to the right Chase credit card department, and they gave me a specific date in late April when they say they confirmed with FL I had cancelled the charge back. I have the case number in the subject line, and they've stated they would issue us a credit, so I'm presuming they and probably the entire company are still swamped.

Most of that detail isn't relevant to you but I included it in case anybody else in our situation is still monitoring the thread. Good luck on a timely response.

warakorn

Trust me! FI hopes that after 3-5 months you just have forgotten about that money.
The actual technical processing does not take 3-5 months.

irishguy28

It may very well do, when their staff numbers are down. In almost all airlines worldwide - and I don't see why FI would be much different - there are fewer customer service agents available than in "normal" times, frequently working from home (where, for various reasons, access to customer payment details may not be possible).

This smaller workforce would therefore already be behind if just trying to process the usual caseload of refund requests - but instead, they literally have to process almost every ticket issued for almost every flight originally scheduled to operate from mid March to the present date, and for all flights that had originally been scheduled for some time going forward...

elkue

I wonder if no reply to an email for 2 months + would help to construct an argument for a charge back?

warakorn

This is was funny.
Try a chargeback. The airline will react immediately and dispute the chargeback.

irishguy28

Why was it funny? Reduced staff numbers does not appear to be a laughing matter.

elkue

It's not out of the question to think that a company may not be able to deliver a product which was paid for when they have not responded to an inquiry about that product for 40+ days.

warakorn

It is funny to see the hypocrisy of an airline, when the airline is telling the public that refunds will take 3-5 months due to low staffing level; but at the same time the airline has enough staff at hand to dispute chargebacks in real-time.