[wheelguy]

I have a pleasant experience to share. Back in November 2019, we booked to & fro tickets for a family trip of 15 members via Cleartrip and MakeMyTrip, few members via Bangalore, few via Hyderabad, and the carrier is Indigo for few and AirAsia for others. A bit complicated plan yet all tickets confirmed as per our requirement, but sadly just few days before the scheduled journey we have to cancel the trip. We thought we have to lose a good chunk of the booking amount as cancellation charges, but to our surprise MMT guys agreed to refund 100% of the booking amount. Cleartrip guys initially didn't agree for 100% refund but upon mentioning about MMT even they agreed to refund full amount. Even though they agreed for the refund, it took numerous calls to their respective customer care centers including calls to the airlines. Finally we got 100% refund, not a single penny is lost, though it required multiple follow-ups, happy that the MMT guys have been super cooperative throughout the process. With Cleartrip, it's a neutral experience.

Gist: MakeMyTrip's customer care experience is awesome.

[akshaymahajan]

What was the latest government directive/Airline policies around these flight cancellation changes? I had the following tickets booked and none of them seem to be offering any sort of refund

1. KLM - 1st October 2020 Bangalore - Amsterdam - Warsaw {originally April, but was optimistically rescheduled}
2. Air India - 16th October 2020 Stockholm - Bangalore {originally April, but was optimistically rescheduled}
3. Air India - May 2020 Delhi - Bangalore

These were booked through through Cleartip or Yatra and I have been emailing them for weeks now with no help.

[Shiftlock]

Not sure if this is the right thread to be posting this but I could not find any other related thread so I am posting my grievances with Paytm here.

Last year in March, we had booked flight tickets for 5 passengers for a trip to Bombay in May 2020 using Paytm. Unfortunately due to the lockdown, the trip was cancelled and the money was put into a credit shell with Paytm/Spicejet.

Fast-forward to august of 2020, we utilized a portion of the credit shell on an urgent round trip from Hyd-CCU. The remaining credit shell was never used as there was no reason to travel by flight the whole year. In march 2021,I received a notification that as per GoI's guidelines, any unused credit shell amount has to be refunded to customers after 31st march. When I contacted Spicejet regarding this, they initiated and completed a refund to paytm and I was asked to contact Paytm customer care.

The problem starts here. On our telephonic conversation, I received conformation regarding the refund however shortly after that, on the Paytm app, I saw a miscellaneous Paytm charge of Rs.1495 being deducted from my refund. When I called their customer care once again regarding this, they claimed it was airfare cancellation fee. The have already charged cancellation charges in the refund amount and I can see that in the statement, this extra money is a plain SCAM.

Is there anyway they can legally get away with charging this extra money? It has been more than 2 months and I have not received any word regarding this issue, is there way to escalate this matter to someone above their customer service department?

Any help would be appreciated.

[fiat_tarun]

I have had a good experience with refunds via MMT. I had a PNQ-BLR round trip booked at the end of March which was when the 2nd wave was picking up in MH. Long story short both sectors got re-scheduled and I decided to just cancel my travel plan. Directly cancelled with the airline (Indigo & Go-Air) and refunds were immediately processed and I received confirmation emails.

On the MMT app, there is an option 'directly cancelled with airline' where you need to upload proof that your booking is cancelled. I attached the airline emails confirming the refund and MMT took about a week but I received my full refund.

Had a similar experience on HDFC smart buy when I used points to buy a Go-Air ticket and the flight got cancelled. They took about 2 weeks but the refund came through.

[2000rpm]

Hi Team,

I need help with something I am facing with British Airways.

Request - Request for refund for a flight which was scheduled on 28th June 2020

Chronology -

• 2nd Feb 2020 - Ticket booked
• 25th Mar 2020 - Lockdown announced in India
• 25th April 2020 - Airlines offered Vouchers for flights, for refund they asked customers to connect with the airlines (airline customer cares were not operating that time, I called the customer care with hold time of more than 2 hours 3-4 times). I went ahead and got the refund. (P.S. - I got the same for a Lufthansa Flight also)
• 8th Oct 2020 - Supreme Court passed a ruling to refund the amount for cancelled flights to all customers
• 18th December 2020 - Lufthansa processed my refund for my tickets (British Airways have not)
• 2nd June 2021 - I requested for refund from British Airways, which they refused to process. Their argument is that, the vouchers are non-refundable and I have agreed to the terms and conditions, while claiming the Vouchers.

My counter argument is, the terms and conditions of the airlines were agreed prior to supreme court ruling. In such a scenario, would the terms and conditions of the company over power the supreme court ruling.

Anyways, the amount is decently large but not significant. I would like a refund, any guidance friends on how do I approach it?

Also, these vouchers are now open for redemption for anyone, so in case anyone wants to book British Airways, we could work out a deal .

[V.Narayan]

File a case with a consumer court in India. I worked for BA as an engineering vendor in the UK for years and they are notoriously stingy and will hold your money if they can on flimsy grounds. I also served LH in a similar capacity and never ever had a payment problem in years and years. So I would urge you to go for it. LH had higher technical standards and would hold our feet to the fire but never cringed on payment. BA had lower standards, constantly changing specs, a massive bureaucracy and a habit of not answering the phone!!

[roamer012]

I faced similar issue with Air Asia. Rather after supreme court ruling, all Indian airlines processed refunds from vouchers (Vistara did it in the month of March itself, Indigo stuck to vouchers but refunded after supreme court ruling without any manual request). Air Asia stuck to their guns despite several requests from my side. In the month of March 2021 lo and behold, i receive a message that refund processed in January 2021 and will be credited in 5-7 working days, and i receive the same too. However there was another ticket with Air Asia which was not refunded, i once again opened a ticket and it came to light that the matter was stuck because of intermediary (ClearTrip, who seemed to have their own financial difficulties at the time). Anyways, even Air Asia obeyed the order. SO now its a matter of your perseverance and how receptive is the staff on other side to your requests.

Please note, there are several DGCA guidelines which are "VERY" pro consumer in terms of cancellations, however most of them apply to Indian carriers only. Secondly even Indian carriers play smart and do not advertise this DGCA cancellation policy in bold and the policy or its implementation by the airline is usually hidden under a plethora of menu trees. Even then, major caveat is that you need to contact airlines via phone or in person to receive benefits under DGCA policies and in these crazy times, we all know how easy it is to get thru their call centers let alone visit their offices in person.

Do google, Passenger Charter of MoCA.

[TorqueyTechie]

I had a similar issue with BA only that I did not request for voucher and asked for a refund. This was to the tune of 900£ and when the flights were cancelled by them. It took me 3 months and multiple follow ups to receive the refund. It worked for me when I reached out via their twitter handle (their customer support is a joke). I would suggest you try the same.

[AZT]

I agree on the calling out on twitter part. Public shaming does work sometimes. Can you message me how much the vouchers are worth in case not comfortable posting here, may travel in Nov/Dec so can hit you up if voucher still not used.