Denied boarding TAP Portugal -Any Rights?
 

We were booked Tenerife>Lisbon ( in transit)>Prague. The Czech authorities need an antigen test, so that is what we got. It seems that transit via Lisbon requires a PCR. Half the plane made the same error and were also turned away.

I do not know how the staff have to deal with the disappointment and abuse they must receive on a daily basis. It would turn me against the human race. IN fact the lady seemed to take delight in informing us we would not be travelling :)

Rightly or wrongly so. The change of ticket option required a 210 euro per person" penalty fee" which makes it uneconomical to rebook for our family of 5 and a dog. With that sort of "fee" it gives me little sympathy for the airline and was wondering if any tactics could be deployed to ask for a chargeback.

I have rebooked tickets tomorrow with a different at a cost of an additional 1000 euros and would be great to recoup some of these costs. I have won in the past but this time I think it will be an uphill battle.

So what?
The PCR test requirement of Lisbon/Portugal should have been easy to find out beforehand.

Since March 2020 it should be clear that third-country transfers has to be planed diligently.

That won't work.

Just a quick question
We are now at least 12 months into the restrictions for international travel and the requirements for doing it. When did you last check Portugal's transit requirements before departing?

My take (and I am an avid reader of this site) is that prior to departure, one needs to check all the boxes including testing and quarantine requirements for each city or airport that one may be visiting, and that needs to be done immediately prior to departure due to the vagaries of local and national officials.

Your post just reinforced my impression that one can really get burned if they are remiss in that behavior. :(

50%+ of the plane were as diligent as myself. You live and learn. I will not make the same mistake again. More to the point asking about chargeback tactics.

While I understand your frustration, you have no rights in this case. It is traveller's responsibility to ensure they have documents required for travel and airline is legally obliged to deny boarding to those who don't. Since it's the traveller's fault, normal ticket conditions apply. Any rebooking, free or paid, would be a goodwill gesture, unless you had a flexible ticket.

I have flow several times during the last year but never in transit. our fault was looking at departure and arrival and omitting the transit airport. Expensive mistake many seem to make day in day out.

OK I will throw one out there. In April 2020 we were denied entrance to Indonesia with Citilink. Customer service never responded to my requests for a refund. After 3 tries I sent screenshots of my requests. I did a chargeback and got my money.

Looking at the majority of tripadvisor reviews now TAP are inundated with claims of avoidance of refunds but simply not replying. Perhaps I could just use this to my advantage.

Well, TAP is certainly on my personal No-Fly-List, because of their very bad behaviour. However, in this case they were right.

Was that a package holiday or did you book the flights by yourself? I guess the latter, because you were asking for a chargeback.
Why am I raising the question on package holiday - if the package holiday operator changed the flights and put you on TAP (with a third-country transit), then you may have a case against the package holiday operator.

Why? You messed up, not TAP.

Don't waste your time and don't blame TAP. I would check if there is value left in the ticket (after the change fee). You could apply that to a future PRG-LIS if you have any intention of going there. If not - don't think about it again.

Yes I understand that the airline has the upper hand here. I am not crying in my beer. Unfortunately I booked direct, so I was hoping perhaps for some good will for that, like credit in the future etc. Instead they offered nothing but exploitive rebooking double the original ticket costs. Their customer service wait time is pretty horrid too, approx. 15 minutes.

From a game theory perspective I am just trying to get one over on them :)

Your experience is what makes me so reluctant to travel internationally.

1. The rules for entry and exit from a country change in an erratic and irrational fashion based many times on nothing more than political appearance rather than scientific facts
2. The new (and changed on the fly) rules are enforced with the avidity seen only in cult followers
3. Penalties for disobeying the rules are draconian
4. and the worst is...that none of this travel theatre means a squat in the control of the disease.

Frankly, if you asked me, I would try every means possible (charge back, complain to the authorities, etc.) to get back some of my money. Even if you fail, at least you may feel better having tried ;)

What would be the basis for chargeback?

Sorry but this is a typical case of someone making a mistake and then expecting someone else to pay for that mistake. That's not how the world works. TAP didn't do anything wrong here, there is nothing "exploitive" about applying ticket conditions you agreed to. If you require flexible conditions, you can book a flexible ticket next time.

I also lost money by being negligent of something (or outright stupid :D) before. It sucked, it made me angry but ultimately I had to accept consequences of my actions.

No! You are the living proof that the restrictions work. Because of these rules you are reluctant to travel internationally. This is the main intention of these rules -> discourage international travel!

You were clearly at fault here, as others have said. But you will have learned a lot from this mistake. Travellling has become a total nightmare of bureaucracy that politicians are trying to justify by safety. The only thing you can be upset with with TAP is to not have a policy allowing to rebook fro free in that kind of circumstances and vote with your feet by never flying with them again. Some airline have a policy for this situation of not having the test on-time.
Question : did TAP inform you at any time of this requirement ? Because with AFKL, for instance, they send you several sms and emails with the requirement of the destination country and for transit in their hubs.

You were at fault here, but your credit card company might actually cover all/some of this. Call them and ask for your options. Obv don’t chargeback as that is fraudulent