Cupart

I read an article in EB.dk that all claims made before October 1st MUST be refunded by November 15th:

"Hvis du fortsat ikke har fået dine penge tilbage for en aflyst flyrejse, er der godt nyt.
Trafikstyrelsen har netop givet 12 flyselskaber til 1. december til at refundere alle aflyste flyrejser.

Foreløbigt drejer det sig om følgende selskaber. Aegean Airlines, Air France, Brussels Airlines, easyJet, KLM, Lufthansa, Norwegian, Ryanair, SAS, TAP Portugal, Thai Air og Vueling
Men selve refusionen er afhængig af dato for anmodning af refusion fra kunderne, hvornår refusionen skal falde.Har man indgivet en anmodning før 1. oktober, skal pengene tilbagebetales senest den 15. november. Har man indgivet den i perioden 1. oktober-15. november, skal tilbagebetalingen ske senest 1. december.

Indgiver man en refusionsanmodning efter 15. november, skal tilbagebetaling ske inden for syv dage, lyder det i pressemeddelelsen."

Google Translate:

"If you still have not received your money back for a canceled flight, there is good news.
The Danish Transport Authority has just given 12 airlines until 1 December to reimburse all canceled flights.

For the time being, these are the following companies. Aegean Airlines, Air France, Brussels Airlines, easyJet, KLM, Lufthansa, Norwegian, Ryanair, SAS, TAP Portugal, Thai Air and Vueling
However, the refund itself depends on the date of requesting a refund from the customers, when the refund should decrease.
If you have submitted a request before 1 October, the money must be refunded no later than 15 November. Has it been submitted in the period 1 October-15. November, the repayment must be made no later than 1 December.

If a refund request is submitted after November 15, repayment must be made within seven days, the press release reads."

Is this information correct?

I cancelled a CPH-SFO return flights after the CPH-SFO was cancelled by SK but never got any choice of a refund or credit note. Did chat with SAS who told me the cancellation was still pending in the refund queue but nothing further could be said.
This was a few weeks ago...

Im a new user

The law says that the airline has to refund you within seven days. If the airline doesn't refund you within seven days, then you are entitled to interest and refund of any legal fees.

Many airlines haven't refunded within the time limit, so the Traffic Board has threatened the 12 named airlines that the matter will be escalated if they don't refund people faster. This could result in fines for the airlines.

If your ticket has not been refunded by 1 November, I suggest that you complain to the Traffic Board.

oliver2002

I suppose now that SAS raised some money on the stock market they are supposed to have enough funds to reimburse cancelled tickets... hope springs eternal

Cupart

Got the refund mail yesterday (26.10.20) but still haven't received the actual funds as of today. Guess it takes a few days.

Waited all in all, from when I requested a refund for the cancelled flights to the note as mentioned above: 67 days

nldogbert

What is the website for this traffic board? I have been waiting since April and not a single cent refunded. I was planning to wait till Nov 1 to start a chargeback.

Cheers!

Simonmiller

Sorry just re-editing with the correct link - it's here: https://reiselivsforum.no/web/home/ - ignore the previous link I posted!

Im a new user

https://www.trafikstyrelsen.dk/I suggest that you take the chargeback route in case there are chargeback deadlines.

nldogbert

Ok I submitted my complain to them yesterday but today I received information that since I am based in the EU, I will need to submit a complain via my country based equivalent committee. So I guess I will just go for the chargeback route.
Thanks for the help!

Cheers!

tonydav43

I live in Noway and so far I have had 2 out f 3 refunds returned
1 was for a voucher which took about 10 weeks to come through
the other was for a cash refund which took about 14 weeks to come through
I am still waiting for a 3rd one which I requested 6 weeks ago, so I will wait and see how long that one takes
I also had a flight with Qatar airways, that cash refund took 28 days
SAS are basically holding onto customers money and basically have an interest free loan, especially if you take a voucher.
There system used to be automated and took max 7 days, but they removed the automatic system and went manual, another way to hold onto customers cash.
I used to fly SAS all the time and as I live in the far North of Norway, we are restricted to 3 airlines to choose from, but I will not be flying SAS in the future when I can avoid it

NextWhiteDeath

That is so weird. Couple of weeks ago BA cancelled a flight and I hadn't called yet to request a refund. A very attractive fare came up and I was happy to take a voucher. I requested it and I got it 5 or 10 min later. Why couldn't it be an automated system at SAS. It is not like you can cash the voucher in for cold hard cash. That just sound weird to me and SAS just having bad IT or like some US airlines with refund being very paranoid and checking every transaction to see that they don't send too much.

tonydav43

SAS stopped their automated system not long after Covid hit and people starting cancelling flights. If they had kept the automated system, then everyone would have received their refunds within 7 days which meant SAS paying out alot of money in a short space of time. So by making the refund system manuel means that they can keep hold of your money for longer which is basically an interest free loan. The refunds are taking about 10 weeks to process, so they get a 10 week interest free loan with your money.
There is a big stink about the time SAS is taking to refund, I received a refund from Qater within 28 days. The top boss in SAS has stated it is taking longer as they are part of the star alliance group so a refund in their case is not so simple as they might have used 2 maybe more carriers for your trip, my opinion is not my problem, I paid you in good faith, you canceled my flights, so pay me back

Update on the status of my refunds, what a mess
I applied for a refund in Jul for some flights that were cancelled, lets call the booking ref 123456
I also applied in Sept for a refund due to cancelled flights again, lets call this one 456789

So you can go online and check the status of refunds, as of last week both were still in progress
On Mon I got an email to say that we are refunding you booking ref 123456, money will be with you in 3 to 5 days, great and the money did appear after a few days

So I go online to check the progress of 456789, cant be found as it has been completed ?????????, so I check for 123456 (this has been refunded the other day) and it shows still in progress
Hang on I received an email on Mon saying 123456 had been refunded, ... , SAS sort your act out FFS. Need to call them tomorrow as this is not acceptable

Cupart

QQ: How long did it take for the funds to hit your CC after you received the mail from SAS informing you that a refund had taken place?

tonydav43

It was there the next day, but they do say allow 3 to 5 banking days for it to appear once you receive your email confirmation that the refund has been completed

NextWhiteDeath

I get the concept that they are trying to do cash flow management. I am under the understanding that the voucher itself is the vehicle for managing that cash flow. Issuing a voucher does not lead to cash flowing out of the company and if the person they uses it quickly it means that one they are on a flight and two it removes liability. Most travel companies that issued vouchers are trying to get you to use them as soon as possible.

FRA-AY

Apparently I'm not alone waiting for vouchers / refund since April. Altogether 12 flight were cancelled and more than 1000€ are still to be refunded. I've contacted EB Gold service ca. 10 times after which I was told they cannot help further. Three phone calls were just terminated by cc when "transferring the call to manager".