any chance of a refund?? ryanair!

whiterose11

hi
i booked plane tickets for my grandad to go to irland to see his brother who has been given 2 months to live, i have already checked him into this flight online. Unfortunatly we got a call saying his brother has gone down hill very fast so get here as soon as you can. mad rush around and have got him flights for 6am 2morro.

just wandered whether we could get a refund for the other tickets??? i have checked him in which i assume would stop a refund.

thanks for any help
cant really think straight at the mo

Andy_L

Ryanair, like the rest of the budget airlines, sell non-refundable tickets so regardless of checking-in or not you can't get your money back.
You can reclaim the airport tax part of the ticket although the admin charge is for doing so means it's generally not worth the effort.

whiterose11

Andy_L wrote: »

Ryanair, like the rest of the budget airlines, sell non-refundable tickets so regardless of checking-in or not you can't get your money back.
You can reclaim the airport tax part of the ticket although the admin charge is for doing so means it's generally not worth the effort.

cheers:beer: thanks for taking the time to reply
thought as much:rolleyes:

Kazipoo

Did you take out the insurance, sometimes its included in the price as standard?? If so, you may be able to claim on that, most insurances cover family illness and bereavement etc. Just an idea.

pulliptears

Personally, I'd appeal to their nature (thus assume they have one). Write to them, explain the situation and see what happens. They may refund a portion for goodwill (though its doubtful)

Hintza

Kazipoo wrote: »

Did you take out the insurance, sometimes its included in the price as standard?? If so, you may be able to claim on that, most insurances cover family illness and bereavement etc. Just an idea.

Only if they are previously mentioned surely?

reformedEffortmaker

failing all of the above,could you try selling them? (assuming ryan air dont charge a fortune to change names on tickets?

BFG_2

You could try suing them for a refund.on the grounds that they haven't actually suffered any losses as a result of you not travelling.

The logic of them not refunding is a bit like cinemas and hotels ie if they were full and allowed you to cancel and get a refund at the last minute, then they will have lost the income for that seat [because they don't have time to sell it again].

However i would argue that if there were any unsold seats on the plane [other than your dads unused one], then Ryanair didn't actually lose out on income, ie they could still have sold a seat to a passenger and since not all seats were sold your cancellation would not have deprived them of the opportunity to sell a seat.

Hope that all makes sense.

BTW if you have to cancel a hotel room AFTER their cut-off time [usually 12 noon on the day], ring and try and book another room at the same hotel BEFORE you try and cancel. If they have a room available BEFORE your cancellation then your cancellation doesn't lead to them losing an income opportunity.

Back to budget airlines - you are indeed entitled to the taxes and airport charges back [since ryanair won't be passing them onto the airport and gov as you didn't travel], and they do indeed charge an admin charge.
I again would argue that this admmin charge is excessive and doesn't represent the true cost to them of refunding us. IIRC it costs a small merchant about 16p to process a cc payment [charge by Switch] and budget airlines will have a massive discount. Similarly their internal processing can only be a matter of a computer button or two [in fact since no humans are involved in buying the ticket I can't see how a refund would be any different??] As such the admin charge could well be challenged as excessive and therefore possibly a breach [bit like the bank charges]

I have no idea if my meanderings are definitely right or wrong, so hopefully someone sensible will be along soon........

BFG_2

pulliptears wrote: »

Personally, I'd appeal to their nature

ROTFPML......good one.

If you're serious, then I can only assume that you've neither travelled with them nor seen their CEO on the TV??

They are similar to wheel-clampers in their approach to customer service - namely they don't have any and are proud of it.

pulliptears

BFG wrote: »

ROTFPML......good one.

If you're serious, then I can only assume that you've neither travelled with them nor seen their CEO on the TV??

They are similar to wheel-clampers in their approach to customer service - namely they don't have any and are proud of it.

If you dont ask you dont get, do you?

BFG_2

pulliptears wrote: »

If you dont ask you dont get, do you?

True, but thats not a sensible way to make decisions about how to spend your time - you need to do a 'cost-benefit' type analysis [which we all do intuitively a lot of the time anyway].

Effort required to write letter vs chances of getting ANYTHING at all back -even inc taxes etc.

You have to write as ryanair don't allow people to email, letters only [to dissuade people from contacting them]; an awful lot of people can't be bothered putting pen to paper [myself included], and the chances of Ryanair even reading the letter let alone responding and even then responding favourably [ie giving away money that they have and don't legally need to give you] are on the anorexic side of slim [imo].

wrt not being able to email ryanair I seem to recall something about the OFT was investigating this, so it may now be possible???