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Claiming refunds re travel (covid19)

Holiday Ideas & Foreign Travel
yorkshirelad1
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Claiming refunds re travel (covid19)

#311723

Postby yorkshirelad1 » May 24th, 2020, 11:31 am

The question of refunds for e.g. cancelled air travel and holidays is topical. There was (IMHO) a particularly good article in yesterday's (Sat 23 May 2020) Guardian by Richard Colbey, barrister. It seems to cover most of the points and gives some useful advice when things get tricky. It may be found here:

Frustrated contracts: the law is on your side over holiday refunds
(Print headline: You may feel frustrated - and your contract could be too, p.43)
Guardian Sat 23 May 2020
https://www.theguardian.com/money/2020/may/22/frustrated-contracts-law-holiday-refunds-coronavirus

There was an article in the FT on the same subject
Flight refunds: will card companies pay out (p. 9 in Money section in print edition)
Sat 23 May 2020
https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=site%3Aft.com+Flight+refunds%3A+will+card+companies+pay+out&oq=site%3Aft.com+Flight+refunds%3A+will+card+companies+pay+out

terminal7
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Re: Claiming refunds re travel (covid19)

#315110

Postby terminal7 » June 4th, 2020, 12:05 pm

Had a couple of trips recently cancelled by BA a few days ago. Usual stuff on email about claiming vouchers however if you want refund phone this number. Only took some 10 mins to get through - all very straightforward - promised refund may take 4 weeks - we shall see.

T7

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Re: Claiming refunds re travel (covid19)

#315140

Postby seagles » June 4th, 2020, 12:52 pm

Got my "voucher reference" from TUI recently. They 20% additional offer came to less than the £200 if I booked a "new" holiday without the voucher reference. So have used their online claim form, was easy to fill in and "upto" 4 weeks wait for money.

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Re: Claiming refunds re travel (covid19)

#315158

Postby PinkDalek » June 4th, 2020, 1:17 pm

I haven't read the earlier referenced articles but for now:

Holidaymakers may have to wait 18 months for hotel refunds in France and Portugal

Several countries have issued decrees meaning hotels booked directly by travellers can offer credit vouchers instead of cash refunds
UK Holidaymakers have been warned they will have to wait up to 18 months for refunds on cancelled trips to Portugal, Italy or France under an EU-approved scheme. ...


https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/06/03/holidaymakers-may-have-wait-18-months-hotel-refunds-france-portugal/

langley59
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Re: Claiming refunds re travel (covid19)

#317871

Postby langley59 » June 12th, 2020, 12:52 pm

I'm wondering what strategy to adopt to try to get a refund from Easyjet for a flight booked for July 10th. They have emailed me saying that they have not yet cancelled this flight but I have until June 23rd to claim a voucher valid for 12 months. However I do not want a voucher I want a refund. Their T&C state that if you claim the voucher you cannot subesequently obtain a refund in the event of cancellation of the original flight.

Does this mean that if they cancel the flight I would be entitled to a refund (presumably they won't cancel it before the expiry date of the voucher offer)?

If I hold on and they do not cancel the flight would I be able to claim on my annual travel insurance given the government's current restrictions on travel?

NB. I have no intention of travelling and have cancelled the accomodation relating to this prospective holiday.

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Re: Claiming refunds re travel (covid19)

#317877

Postby EssDeeAitch » June 12th, 2020, 1:07 pm

langley59 wrote:I'm wondering what strategy to adopt to try to get a refund from Easyjet for a flight booked for July 10th. They have emailed me saying that they have not yet cancelled this flight but I have until June 23rd to claim a voucher valid for 12 months. However I do not want a voucher I want a refund. Their T&C state that if you claim the voucher you cannot subesequently obtain a refund in the event of cancellation of the original flight.

Does this mean that if they cancel the flight I would be entitled to a refund (presumably they won't cancel it before the expiry date of the voucher offer)?

If I hold on and they do not cancel the flight would I be able to claim on my annual travel insurance given the government's current restrictions on travel?

NB. I have no intention of travelling and have cancelled the accomodation relating to this prospective holiday.


I really do not know the answer to this but is it worth emailing them and asking what the alternative is? Let them state in writing what your options are. They may blank you of course but then email the CEO at stelios@easygroup.co.uk

beseeinyou
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Re: Claiming refunds re travel (covid19)

#317905

Postby beseeinyou » June 12th, 2020, 1:59 pm

Would it not be the case that they will only fly on July 10th if the government's non essential travel restrictions are lifted?, if the government doesn't lift the restriction the flight will be cancelled and you would then claim your refund.

If the government does lift the restriction and the flight goes ahead you will not be able to claim a refund, and I don't see that you would be able to claim insurance.

Beseeinyou

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Re: Claiming refunds re travel (covid19)

#317921

Postby dealtn » June 12th, 2020, 2:39 pm

EssDeeAitch wrote:
langley59 wrote:I'm wondering what strategy to adopt to try to get a refund from Easyjet for a flight booked for July 10th. They have emailed me saying that they have not yet cancelled this flight but I have until June 23rd to claim a voucher valid for 12 months. However I do not want a voucher I want a refund. Their T&C state that if you claim the voucher you cannot subesequently obtain a refund in the event of cancellation of the original flight.

Does this mean that if they cancel the flight I would be entitled to a refund (presumably they won't cancel it before the expiry date of the voucher offer)?

If I hold on and they do not cancel the flight would I be able to claim on my annual travel insurance given the government's current restrictions on travel?

NB. I have no intention of travelling and have cancelled the accomodation relating to this prospective holiday.


I really do not know the answer to this but is it worth emailing them and asking what the alternative is? Let them state in writing what your options are. They may blank you of course but then email the CEO at stelios@easygroup.co.uk


I doubt that's the correct email.

I would think the contract is with easyjet a listed plc, not easygroup which is Stelios's investment company. There is long running "history" between Stelios and the company, and the current CEO resulting in the recent AGM vote there which failed to replace him.

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Re: Claiming refunds re travel (covid19)

#317968

Postby EssDeeAitch » June 12th, 2020, 4:24 pm

dealtn wrote:
EssDeeAitch wrote:
langley59 wrote:I'm wondering what strategy to adopt to try to get a refund from Easyjet for a flight booked for July 10th. They have emailed me saying that they have not yet cancelled this flight but I have until June 23rd to claim a voucher valid for 12 months. However I do not want a voucher I want a refund. Their T&C state that if you claim the voucher you cannot subesequently obtain a refund in the event of cancellation of the original flight.

Does this mean that if they cancel the flight I would be entitled to a refund (presumably they won't cancel it before the expiry date of the voucher offer)?

If I hold on and they do not cancel the flight would I be able to claim on my annual travel insurance given the government's current restrictions on travel?

NB. I have no intention of travelling and have cancelled the accomodation relating to this prospective holiday.


I really do not know the answer to this but is it worth emailing them and asking what the alternative is? Let them state in writing what your options are. They may blank you of course but then email the CEO at stelios@easygroup.co.uk


I doubt that's the correct email.

I would think the contract is with easyjet a listed plc, not easygroup which is Stelios's investment company. There is long running "history" between Stelios and the company, and the current CEO resulting in the recent AGM vote there which failed to replace him.


You could well be correct about the email but there is only one way to find out so I have emailed something complimentary to him to see if there is a reply or bounce. I will post back in a few days I got the address from https://www.ceoemail.com/ which someone on the forum posted

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Re: Claiming refunds re travel (covid19)

#317980

Postby langley59 » June 12th, 2020, 4:42 pm

beseeinyou wrote:Would it not be the case that they will only fly on July 10th if the government's non essential travel restrictions are lifted?, if the government doesn't lift the restriction the flight will be cancelled and you would then claim your refund.

If the government does lift the restriction and the flight goes ahead you will not be able to claim a refund, and I don't see that you would be able to claim insurance.

Beseeinyou


I suspect you are right and it seems I have to play a game of poker here. The worst case scenario for me seems to be that the government announce some sort of special arrangement with my holiday destination country to avoid the 14 day quarantine rule and the flight goes ahead, probably with few people on it but with EJ pocketing all the fares. I can't travel because where I was due to go is not properly open, not that my family are willing to go now anyway.

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Re: Claiming refunds re travel (covid19)

#318197

Postby muckshifter » June 13th, 2020, 4:48 pm

If its anything to go by, here is my experience with Easyjet. I made a total of five separate bookings for flights between 10th June and 24th June for my family members, back in very early February before the pandemic arrived. As things began to go wrong, I received an email from Easyjet on 23rd February offering the chance to change flights without any change fee for flights up to Feb 21(which I think was as far as their schedules went at the time), mentioning lots of cheap flights coming up if you were quick, and mentioning that you would not get any change back if the alternative flights you chose were cheaper but would have to pay the difference if they were more expensive. This email said that this would be the situation "until further notice", and that flights could be changed up to 2 hours before departure. I've not had any email which changes that FWIW.

Since then, I've had five cancellation notifications for the flights, all but one were more than 14 days before departure, with the other one exactly 14 days before. Then, to my surprise I received cancellations for the return legs of round trip bookings. Each of the cancellations offered three alternatives:-
1. Change to almost any flight in their schedule for free covering the period to May 21. The excluded countries were Israel, Egypt, Jordan Turkey and Morocco. This was a good offer in some of our circumstances, but there was a bit of ambiguity I thought so I tried to get answers by phone but it was hopeless and there was no email facility available. The unanswered question is does the May 21 date apply to the flights available, the period in which you can book, or both.
2. Accept Vouchers valid for a year for the full value of your flights.
3. Claim a refund. You could claim that refund at any time up to a year from cancellation, which tied in for me quite well with an opportunity provided in alternative 1.

I'm not sure of any effect that accepting 1 or 2 would have on your rights to claim from your credit card provider if Easyjet went bang.

For most of our flights I claimed a refund and received an almost instant acknowledgement of the claim in emails which warned that although they would aim to refund within 28 days they were so busy that you shouldn't contact them before 90 days.

On their website currently, within the Covid 19 advice section they are now saying that they are still reviewing their flights on a rolling basis and that you can change your flight without change fees up to 14 days before flying, which seems to be an unannounced change from the initial email.

Hope that helps.

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Re: Claiming refunds re travel (covid19)

#318221

Postby langley59 » June 13th, 2020, 8:41 pm

Thanks muckshifter that's helpful and I will monitor their rolling flights schedule as it updates in the hope that my July 10th flight is cancelled or confirmed before the deadline of June 23rd to claim vouchers. It does throw a further spanner in the works however in that you imply that EasyJet view the return flights as separate, so there could presumably be a scenario where my outward flight is cancelled (and refunded) but my return flight is not should the rules change between those two dates.

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Re: Claiming refunds re travel (covid19)

#318298

Postby muckshifter » June 14th, 2020, 10:52 am

I suspect, langley59, that the sending of a separate cancellation notification for the return leg of flights was just a sign of the pressure Easyjet were under in terms of administration of cancellations, rather than an attempt to treat the return flight as a separate booking, as I don't think they would get that principle past the legal profession / ombudsman if they tried.

For my wife and myself I had booked entirely separate bookings for flights out and back and I would imagine that sorting passengers who do that, from those who book conventional returns was the problem that caused the extra cancellation notifications. Because of the immediate effects on pricing of booking a considerable group, we only booked our flight out initially because the flight back was looking expensive and we didn't want to exacerbate that situation before one couple of our family members were able to confirm their holiday dates and book. As a result, sure enough the price of the flight back went up while I was waiting, but I found a route back via two other Easyjet flights at an incredibly low price. You can see the logic of not claiming a small refund when those two flights would allow us to change to normally more expensive ones at no extra cost, ie. alternative 1 looks very attractive to us in that particular case, provided I can eventually get through to check the unanswered questions that I posted before.

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Re: Claiming refunds re travel (covid19)

#318313

Postby Gerry557 » June 14th, 2020, 11:45 am

Finally received a refund for a package holiday albeit almost a month after request. I think this was outside the legal requirements but possibly a logistics issue, too little staff and lots of cancellations.

Did have to ring an impossible to reach number after refusing the voucher offer.

Did consider using bank, credit card recovery.

Posted for experience of the system. I'm sure others have fayred worse

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Re: Claiming refunds re travel (covid19)

#320807

Postby langley59 » June 23rd, 2020, 4:14 pm

Still playing my game of poker with Easyjet here. I have until midnight tonight to claim a voucher for the value of my flight booked for July 10th. I'm tempted to gamble and hope that the flight is cancelled and I get a cash refund in due course. The government travel advice still says that non essential travel should be avoided. Even with the suggested air bridge arrangements, opeing up of pubs/restaurants etc and relaxation of the 2 metre rule how on earth can a flight take off with a full compliment of passengers in these circumstances? There would surely have to be no more than one passanger per row and empty rows between these.

So I'm going to gamble but fully expect to be disappointed and lose my money...

langley59
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Re: Claiming refunds re travel (covid19)

#321084

Postby langley59 » June 24th, 2020, 1:59 pm

langley59 wrote:Still playing my game of poker with Easyjet here. I have until midnight tonight to claim a voucher for the value of my flight booked for July 10th. I'm tempted to gamble and hope that the flight is cancelled and I get a cash refund in due course. The government travel advice still says that non essential travel should be avoided. Even with the suggested air bridge arrangements, opeing up of pubs/restaurants etc and relaxation of the 2 metre rule how on earth can a flight take off with a full compliment of passengers in these circumstances? There would surely have to be no more than one passanger per row and empty rows between these.

So I'm going to gamble but fully expect to be disappointed and lose my money...


It seems like my gamble paid off as I received a further email from Easyjet this morning, the day after the expiry of the offer to claim a voucher, notifying me that my outward flight is now cancelled and I can claim a refund (albeit subject to a delay due to high volumes). I guess I will have to wait 10 days or so for them to (hopefully) notify me that my inward bound flight is also cancelled.

So for anyone else in a similar predicament this seems to be how the system works.

terminal7
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Re: Claiming refunds re travel (covid19)

#321809

Postby terminal7 » June 26th, 2020, 1:29 pm

Ryanair have cancelled my return flight in late August from Nimes to LTN as they have reduced the frequency of flights on this route. Usual stuff about voucher etc. However they have not cancelled the outward flight from LTN in mid August. Alternative return flights are totally inconvenient and hence I no longer wish to travel. However it appears that that I have to cancel with the usual heavy cancellation charges despite the cause being Ryanair's fault in not providing the return leg of the booking. Trying to get through by phone to try to get some clarity is impossible - the waits are just insupportable.

T7

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Re: Claiming refunds re travel (covid19)

#321952

Postby Gerry557 » June 27th, 2020, 5:41 am

terminal7 wrote:Ryanair have cancelled my return flight in late August from Nimes to LTN as they have reduced the frequency of flights on this route. Usual stuff about voucher etc. However they have not cancelled the outward flight from LTN in mid August. Alternative return flights are totally inconvenient and hence I no longer wish to travel. However it appears that that I have to cancel with the usual heavy cancellation charges despite the cause being Ryanair's fault in not providing the return leg of the booking. Trying to get through by phone to try to get some clarity is impossible - the waits are just insupportable.

T7

That's a difficult one. I take it they are two individual and separate booking. If so I doubt you have much come back. You might be able to use social media to add pressure to your case. I don't know what advice I can offer.

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Re: Claiming refunds re travel (covid19)

#321973

Postby terminal7 » June 27th, 2020, 9:41 am

Right in one Gerry 557 - hence 2 booking numbers. Originally my OH and I going to take grandson with us on way out and then handover him later to my son/d-I-l in France for us to travel back just the 2 of us - hence separate bookings.

T7

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Re: Claiming refunds re travel (covid19)

#322973

Postby langley59 » July 1st, 2020, 1:30 pm

langley59 wrote:
langley59 wrote:Still playing my game of poker with Easyjet here. I have until midnight tonight to claim a voucher for the value of my flight booked for July 10th. I'm tempted to gamble and hope that the flight is cancelled and I get a cash refund in due course. The government travel advice still says that non essential travel should be avoided. Even with the suggested air bridge arrangements, opeing up of pubs/restaurants etc and relaxation of the 2 metre rule how on earth can a flight take off with a full compliment of passengers in these circumstances? There would surely have to be no more than one passanger per row and empty rows between these.

So I'm going to gamble but fully expect to be disappointed and lose my money...


It seems like my gamble paid off as I received a further email from Easyjet this morning, the day after the expiry of the offer to claim a voucher, notifying me that my outward flight is now cancelled and I can claim a refund (albeit subject to a delay due to high volumes). I guess I will have to wait 10 days or so for them to (hopefully) notify me that my inward bound flight is also cancelled.

So for anyone else in a similar predicament this seems to be how the system works.


Just to advise that Easyjet cancelled my return flight today so I can now attempt to claim a refund for both flights.


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