IAN-UK

Another update, and a warning.

A few posts back i was pleased to report the TP rebooking policy I followed after the airline canceled a fight in my trip to Brasil.. The policy gave me over a year to effect a rescheduling, no change fee, no fare increase whatever the fare-class of available seats.



BUT....

Last week, on the day of my cancelled departure. I received an email suggesting I check-in for that day's flights to Lisbon and on to Sao Paulo

I thought maybe a harmless glitch, but discovered TP had not cancelled the flights and had not put my ticket on hold. In fact they'd simply OK'd the radical schedule changes they'd originally offered.

Just as well i followed up on the check-in alert, because i was heading for a no-show - something it would have have taken work and time to sort out. I'm not sure TP has time on its side.

So, if you accept the "hold for future travel" offer, make sure the agent confirms he/she completes the necessary tasks. They refuse to acknowledge by email that the work has been done, so not a bad idea to make notes of the conversation, record times and names.

jbandy10

Been reading through this thread for a while. Still a bit lost, so I'll just ask.

Have a RT Executive ticket on a paid fare for IAD-LIS-AMS. It's scheduled 7/13-7/21. Obviously there's a good chance that AMS won't let me in the country. Ideally, I would like to cancel this ticket for a refund, but that seems like a tough ask. Any tips?

Caranmellon

I had flights to SFO in March which were obviously cancelled. TAP did not notify me of this - I only found out about the cancellation in February after I noticed the flights had disappeared from my account and I have been chasing for a refund for months. Eventually I had to resort to a CC chargeback to get my money back.

ArnoldB

Hello,

TAP cancelled my (one-way) flight FNC-LIS-VIE in July and changed my booking to the same flights on the day after. Since this is not acceptable to me, I called the hotline and asked them to rebook me to the direct OS flight (FNC-VIE) on the same day. It is even a codeshare flight that is even sold directly on flytap.com. Yet the hotline person said this is not possible, they can only rebook to TAP operated flights. Isn't that blatantly wrong? At least in Austria there is clear jurisdiction that they have to rebook you to the soonest available alterantive flight, even if it is on a different airline. In this case it is their star alliance partner that they are codesharing with on this flight and even selling the flight. Am I right to call BS on this? What should I do?

The hotline guy even literally said he can not rebook me to other airlines' flights because then TAP would have to pay for this.

Thanks

SK AAR

You posted in the wrong thread. There is a dedicated thread for cancellation, rebookings etc.

There is no obligation to rebook you to another carrier (TAP codeshare flight No. or not) when there are TAP flights the day before or after. this is particularly the case if more than 14 days out. I doubt you will accomplish to find a TP agent that will rebook you to another carrier in a situation like this.

If you want to get on the direct OS flight you ask TP to cancel/refund and you buy a ticket with OS.

Any accommodation costs due to the departure the following day should be reimbursed by TP.

36902BRF

I believe executive fares are refundable minus a fee that is charger per leg not per booking though the TAP terms aren't clear. Good luck though. I voluntarily canceled some flights last summer that were Executive fares and should have been refundable for cash. I even managed to get my request in the day before they killed cash refunds. Heard nothing from TAP for months and so went the charge back route with Amex which I won and so got a full rather than partial refund. So it all worked out. My suggestion is if you cancel is take screen captures of everything including the terms on your tickets. I documented everything and also filed a complaint with US DOT when TAP didn't refund me in the 30 days or whatever the TAP terms stated. I included that complaint with my chargeback request. Hopefully TAP is better now but I won't hold my breath.

onewaylove

Still no refund from a flight cancelled in Feb.
Probably time to dispute the charge if they allow me...
worst airline in my experience.

jbandy10

So here is my current problem. I decided to just change this flight. When I booked this particular fare, it came with one free change. There was even a thread here about the fare deal. When I'm talking to TAP now, they're telling me that I have to pay $300 to change even though the fare was sold to me with one free change.

Does anyone have a screenshot of that fare policy? I remember seeing it when the fare came out.

seawolf

Is $300 a fare difference or change fee? Free change is no change fee but fare difference may still apply.

https://www.flytap.com/en-us/special...3-46df2916021c

Bethel Collins

I am having this same problem. Did you ever get a resolution?

piethrowingrobot09

Having a terrible time with TAP currently-

Flight 1- purchased 1/22/20 for 08/02/21. Flight was never canceled, they just moved it by 4 hours as it happened to be the first week they were starting service back through IAD. They refused to issue me a refund, only a voucher was an option, even though I still wasn't allowed to enter the country at the time. Fine, whatever, we'll use the voucher. $508.07 paid for ticket, voucher issued for 595.28 (x2 as it is me and P2). I didn't think I would be able to use a charge back option at this time since it was through chase and they only give about 90 days to request one- which had long past a this point.

Fight 2- purchased 9/25/20 for April/May 2021. Total ticket price: 697.49 each, cash out of pocket was 102.21. Never received email of connecting flight being canceled, found out while checking online. 11/23/2020, was told I would receive full amount for ticket in voucher form, as full refund to credit card was unavailable due to paying for part of this ticket with voucher. Understandable, don't like it, but fine. 90 days would be FEB 21, 2021

Called repeatedly, told nothing could be done to speed up process, it was just taking longer to process. Finally called and told I would be added to a priority list august 9. August 20 (EIGHT months later), we each received vouchers 377.49 which doesn't make sense at all. Requesting a voucher should have given us a 20% bonus, so I was expecting either $122. (worst case they only refund the additional cash out of pocket) or $836 (if they did what they said they would). I'm not even sure where the 377 amount is coming from. At this point I would be fine with just $508, what we originally paid for the first ticket and be done with this, but I can't even get a hold of a phone rep to discuss this.

af fp

I probably mentioned this earlier, I had bought two tickets with TAP, one for April 2020 and one for December 2020. Both flights were canceled, I asked for refunds, through the complaint form because they would never pick up the phone, and never got a satisfactory answer from anyone. For the first flight I eventually disputed the charge with AmEx, it was refunded, denied, then refunded to the card again, $500. For the other, which was cheaper, $300, I think, I received a voucher for… $28. I wrote again and two months later got an email telling me they could not do anything in the complaints department… I never found the time to dispute it further, kind-of gave up, and today a $300 wire came to my bank account. Good surprise. But honestly I am not too willing to try and book them again. We will see…

onewaylove

Don't even think about getting money back from TAP. just dispute right away next time.

SJCPremier

After 2+ years of trying to get a refund for a Top Executive fare that I was scheduled to fly in June 2020, I actually received a cash refund from TAP today. I had tried everything, cc dispute, US DOT and even the Travel Troubleshooter, all with no luck. I tried one final time through the Tap website a few weeks ago, and was shocked to see a deposit in my bank account today. I guess you can get blood from a stone.

I feel like I won a small jackpot because I had long ago assumed I would never see a penny of this and had written it off in my mind. For those of you that haven’t had any success, try again! It seems like they are finally getting around to giving out these refunds that we all deserve.

cruisingmickey

Wow, after over 2 years, I also finally received a refund from TAP! Just wow! I also went down the charge back route, DoT and complaints routes and nothing really ever happened. I didn't hear anything from TAP for over a year and they recently emailed me an update saying I will get my refund and need to confirm my bank info. A few weeks later, my money is in my bank account.

To those still waiting, I encourage you to keep trying. I basically gave up after a year in, but I guess my refund was still on the list of to be refunded which I am grateful for.