Flight cancellation refund

pjlill

Hello, hoping you can help with a flight refund question. 
I bought a one way ticket from Miami to Heathrow to fly on the 18th March via Virgin Atlantic through Kiwi.com.  On the day, Virgin cancelled the flight.  My understanding is that, as such, I should be able to receive a full refund as a statutory right - i.e. as a service bought and paid for but not delivered. 
I have contacted Kiwi, and they have now acknowledged and initiated a refund request.  However, I am told it could take up to 6 months, and they would not commit to any refund.  While I understand that these are not normal times, that's not an acceptable timeline for me, especially as I would remain out of pocket until a potential resolution a long way into the future.
As a result, I contacted the credit card company to initiate a dispute.  However, they now tell me that because I bought the ticket through a third party (rather than directly via the airline) I may not be successful in the dispute.
Could anybody please clarify whether purchasing a ticket through a third party affects your statutory rights?  Thanks!
Peter

bagand96

I always suspected they might be one of the shoddier agents around, but was very surprised to see their help page on this matter

What if the carrier has already canceled my trip?

If a cancellation or schedule change affects your connecting flight(s), we will notify you via email and SMS. Sign in to your booking to see your options. Depending on availability, we will offer you the following:

1. Instant Kiwi.com Credit — we will credit you up to 70% of the trip cost, depending on your route and the amount you paid for your ticket. We will send you the credit immediately.
2. Assisted refund — as described above, you can pay a €20 processing fee upfront, and we will contact the carriers on your behalf. You should check with carrier's refund policy before choosing assisted refund. 
3. Self-service refunds (in development) — to speed up the refund process for you, we're currently developing a self-service refund feature where we'll provide you with all the credentials you need to contact the carriers directly to get your refund. We won't charge a fee for this service.
4. If you still want to travel — you can choose one of the alternative trips that we offer you. Choosing this option means that you won't be able to claim a refund for your original, affected trip.

"Upto" 70% of the trip cost in credit?! Why not 100%?  Or you can take their very generous offer of an "Assisted refund" for a €20 upfront fee!

The third option seems interesting and might actually help you.  That said, I'd like to see how they propose to do this.  Usually if an agent has made a booking, they own that booking, and the airline will only deal with the agent.  I've heard of rare extenuating circumstances where an airline will take control of a booking and deal with the customer directly, but it's not the norm.

Might be worth investigating though.  Good luck, I fear you may need it.

Caz3121

kiwi (who are a renowned terrible third party) will only refund you after they receive the refund from Virgin. They will then deduct their service fees and return the remainder to you. They will not be able to commit to a timeline as they will not know how long it will take Virgin to refund them (they are Virgin's customer) could well be a few weeks/months.
https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/news/2017/04/revealed-section-75-credit-card-protection-may-fail-due-to-payment-processing-loophole---shoppers-beware/ covers S75 involving third parties
for future - I suspect you chose kiwi rather than booking direct due to cost. One way tickets can be very expensive, kiwi will likely have purchased a return (cheaper) ticket with you not using the return portion. You could do this yourself directly with the airline (not encouraged...called throwaway ticketing...but as a one-off would have been fine)

pjlill

Thank you.  Yes, I did try Virgin as well but there is a mutual figure pointing exercise as I expected.  Unfortunately the only self-service refunds Kiwi offer are ones where the consumer initiates a cancellation.  Not one where the airline just axes the flight (a few hours before it was due to go, I might add).  To me, it's a cut and dried case?  Which was why I was confused that the credit card company was muddying the water by claiming that buying through a third party invalidates my statutory rights.

pjlill

Thanks for the response, interesting article. Does this loophole cover just payment providers (i.e. Paypal etc) or third party booking providers for flights I wonder?  To answer your question - yes, Kiwi on cost for sure.

mattyprice4004

Virgin will have directed you back to Kiwi as you presumably booked a cheaper fare through them - one of the reason airlines allow agencies to book tickets for a discounted rate is that the customer service is moved elsewhere, lowering costs. 

If you'd have paid the extra through Virgin, you'd probably have the refund by now. These shonky online travel agents are a pain when things go wrong, but often a lot cheaper. 

pjlill

Usually we go Norwegian direct.  But their prices are through the roof right now.  If this really does go south I'm going to think twice before using any agent ever again.

bagand96

pjlill said:

Thanks for the response, interesting article. Does this loophole cover just payment providers (i.e. Paypal etc) or third party booking providers for flights I wonder?  To answer your question - yes, Kiwi on cost for sure.

For credit card Section 75 protection you must have a direct relationship between yourself and the company you wish to claim against for failure to provide the service (Virgin). 

- You book directly on Virgin's website and pay them with your credit card: Section 75 Proected
- You book directly on Virgin's website and pay via Paypal or another 3rd party payment processor: No Section 75 protection (although Paypal may have their own protections)
- You book a Virgin flight via a travel agent: No section 75 protection

Your contract with Kiwi is likely that they are your agent and their responsibility to you is to book your flight.  They have done that and therefore fulfilled their contract by making the booking.  Your credit card provider will probably see it that way.

Alan_Bowen

Bagand96 is absolutely correct, the law is that section 75 only applies when the company you contract with has broken its contract. The agent, in this case, has not, doesn't make them a better choice of agent, but normally s. 75 would be rejected. Depending on which card issuer you were using, some will still go for refunds when they shouldn't but usually when the actual supplier has failed, which in this case they haven't.
Booking online with an agent based overseas might have seemed like a good idea at the time but you can't go into their office and talk to them or phone them up easily. They work on the basis of minimal human interaction and as you have discovered when the s hits the f, you really need to be able to talk. There is no easy solution.

pjlill

Thanks for the responses.  That's a £300 lesson learned I guess - always book direct. 

Seems like a pretty nasty loophole, the travel agent and airline between them walk away with the money, the consumer gets nothing.

pjlill

Update:  I contacted my credit card provider and made a claim.  I wasn't expecting it to go anywhere, but earlier this month they refunded the cost in full.  I touched base with them this week to check if it was an interim or final decision, and they confirmed to me it was a final decision, all closed off.
Kiwi are now giving me refund options, but based on the credit card provider decision, I don't believe I need to do anything else.  I guess there is always a possibility of this coming back to bite me in 6 months or so, but it's good news at present. 
Just wanted to let people know, seems as if the loophole against section 75 wasn't used, at least for me.