airoli

Still waiting for my 2 refunds from February.
Have submitted another refund request (flight cancelled by LH) last week.

It will be interesting to see which request is paid when.

SK AAR

Did you succeed with such request? I doubt LX would be prepared to credit to other cc than the original card used - and certainly not because for convenience you prefer to another cc.

airoli

Refund from late April posted within 7 days. On the same date, the refund from mid-February also posted. Still waiting for the refund from late February. All from LH (220 tix).

Tafflyer

So Swiss have finally refunded my tickets they cancelled on April 15th 2020. They dragged their feet, refused 2 charge backs via Amex with nonsensical reasons then when threatened with legal action lied to me that they had actually accepted the charge back and Amex was at fault.

With my addition of interest, out of pocket expenses, legal and court fees, the €2700 refund has now cost them €4300. They could have saved themselves the money and retained a customer.

YuropFlyer

Why didn't you simply asked for a refund? We all know how bad the situationn was last year (and still is to quite some degree)

All of us who simply asked for it eventually got their money back that way, simply as that. And much faster than you did. A chargeback absolutely is the wrong approach, unless they would refuse to actually send the money back, which as much I'm aware they didn't do in any case. Going all crazy about "I want my money back right now!!!!! Don't want to wait a few months till they figured out their millions of flight backlog!!!!!! Me first first first!!!!!!!" in the middle of a global pandemic is a bit.. well... I'll let others finish that sentence.

KARFA

Tafflyer did https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/32263460-post213.html

Have a look at their posts in the thread.

I would also suggest waiting months for a refund is an entirely acceptable reason to proceed down the chargeback route.

YuropFlyer

While I agree that LX could (and should) have processed the refunds quicker (ie, having better systems in place initially to handle the whole meltdown), it's not like they had a fun time sitting on that pile of money. Not like you get interest nowadays..

Once they got the state "grant", they started to handle the refunds, improved their refund form, and the refund train started to run, and so on.

A global pandemic isn't something that you expect to hit you at any time, and it's quite obvious LX didn't held back the money longer than their processes took to actually run the refunds.

Tafflyer's case was probably a bit more special than most refunds, and definitely needed manual checks, so he should have given them some more time. The regular "acceptable" refund time pre-COVID just doesn't apply here.

I doubt what he wrote there - I quote him: "They also refused me a refund for the cancellation." was actually what they really told him. Wouldn't make any sense to me. (Besides that there would not be alternative flight options, so a refund is the only realistic option left)

Or does anyone here really believe LX told the customer "get lost, we cancelled your flight, you won't get back your money"?

I'm happy to blame LX for all their faults and mistakes, but in this very case, I actually stand by them. If Tafflyer simply waited a bit longer, he would have gotten the money back for sure, LIKE EVERYONE ELSE DID.

Or does ANYONE still wait on their refunds? Once their systems catched up with all the refunds, it was quite quickly and completely painless. Money received in a few weeks. And that was from the spring mess where they had to refund double digit million bookings.. go figure!

By playing the "chargeback route", he just made LX his enemy, and generelly everyone's life more miserable (minus the lawyers. They always win on the misery of others).

I wonder if they (or whole LH group) will put a flight ban on him, too.

KARFA

I have no reason to believe Tafflyer is making it up. I was told the same by another European legacy airline last year after a flight cancellation on a booking so I can suggest this was not uncommon, and I had to resort to a chargeback as well. My experience is posted elsewhere in FT. Perhaps therefore we could do Tafflyer the courtesy of not doubting the experience he has posted.

On the delay to refunds point, I really couldn't care less on the intricacies of an airline's bailout. I am not advocating requesting chargebacks at 7 + 1 days, but after waiting for months I think it is entirely appropriate. I wasn't aware LX keep a Nixon-esque enemies list, but if they do I suspect Tafflyer couldn't care less whether they are on it, in the same way I couldn't care less whether I am on the enemies list for another airline I did this to who were deliberately going slow and making no attempt to process the backlog last year. If you prefer to leave your money with the airline then good for you.

warakorn

I completely agree with Tarifflyer here. Such behaviour from the airline would start my blood to boil hot.

airoli

That's because they weren't. LH Group, along with most other large airline groups, ran on a liquidity model where each month's sales income paid for the same month's operations, and not for the delivery of the (future) services they sold tickets for. Simply put: Tickets sold in January for flights in May paid flights in January. Tickets sold in May paid for the flights in May and so on.

So when the pandemic hit, new ticket sales dried up, refund demands skyrocketed, and fixed cost (plus at least initially, many variable costs) remained the same. And then you have a perfect liquidity crunch.

I can assure you that there were very conscious and active management decisions to slow down the processing of refunds for the above reasons until liquidity was restored (through taxpayer and capital markets). And I can relate to any customer who found that upsetting and inappropriate.

As mentioned upthread, still waiting for a LH refund from February.

Carpacchio

Of course - all reasonable managers would immediately protect cash flow ! Others (A3 or AF for instance) resorted to vouchers as the only possibilty for "refund" and a defined 1-year waiting time to get your money back (and in case you used the voucher for a flight that was later cancelled again, it rolled over the 12 month period).

Tafflyer

Ok everybody, I can understand doubters here. After all, the story is so convoluted that is difficult to believe. If it hadn’t been my case I probably also wouldn’t believe it.

I am not normally one to make a fuss and I hate complaining, it’s the British in me, but what I hate more is being lied to and deliberately ignored. Swiss did this. Now, I understand that times were difficult and still are. I understand that perhaps honest mistakes were made but when an organisation first promised to refund me, then doesn’t do so for many weeks, then denies they ever promised it despite having sent an email confirmation, then thinks up one excuse after another and then firmly informs me I will get nothing, well I am going to take them to court.

Swiss and Lufthansa regularly refusing charge backs at that time was also well documented here.

Only after filing legal papers did Swiss admit a mistake and offered the refund. Being a German resident and with the ticket originating from AMS, I had to file the legal challenge in Dutch courts. By that time I was out of pocket as well as angry so I forced the court judgement to reimburse my legal costs and expenses. It cost Swiss nearly €1600 mire than if they had simply refunded me. They had 9 months to do so before I filed papers. In no way does this make up for the wasted hours of my life spent on this, but it does give some satisfaction. Worse though is that a company I really liked to travel with and generally trusted proved to me that as a customer I do not matter to them.

demue

Good you managed to get it sorted even if it required the ultimate step. Sadly I find this kind of approach required more and more frequently these days, just in a general sense of conducting business, not even specific to airlines.

Rightful requests or claims are ignored by companies, service providers, manufacturers and such and one has to escalate & fight for even clear cut claims / cases. A sad state of affairs. YMMV.

exp

no they credited to the canceled card.

then Chase put it on one card and I asked them to move it to another card with a bigger balance.

florens

What are the current refund handling times? I‘ve been waiting 3 weeks now. Why are refunds for full flex tickets not automated anyway?