Ryanair refund thread

mattyprice4004

rjhfandclf said:

Simpleflying.com is not a user-friendly site. Preferable, although The Guardian is not my newspaper of choice, this article is a reasonably fair assessment and comment on many of the airlines' stated positions - however unlawful ...

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2020/apr/10/airlines-law-refunds-voucher-schemes-coronavirus  

I found Simple Flying fine to use - not sure how it’s not user friendly  

TheRealPlodder

Hello dear reader, hope you have had as good an Easter weekend as possible, given our circumstances.

I thought I'd summarise our timeframe so far, to give people an idea of how long this process can take:

Trip to Poland was booked for 22 March, returning 01 April. 

All Ryanair Group flights - including Buzz and Lauda - to and from Poland cancelled from midnight on Saturday March 14.

Started refund button clicking on 16th March.  

Noticed return flight showed as cancelled before outward flight, that still showed as scheduled for some time before eventually showing as cancelled too. 

Found this thread.

Many intermittent clicks on 17th, no luck. Differing error messages, which I now suspect were all caused by overloaded website, not engineered on purpose to deflect claims.

Also tried chat and phone a few times, waste of effort.

Got the got the "Thank you for your refund application" message in the early hours of the 18th March.

Ten days later on 28th March we received the "high volume" email:

"Due to the high volume of flight cancellations due to COVID 19, we are experiencing an unprecedented high volume of requests. 

We are currently working through the backlog and ask that you please bear with us.

Please do not resubmit your request."

On Thursday 9th of April we received the "recent correspondence" email: 

"As previously advised, our Customer Services Team are experiencing an unprecedented high volume of requests due to the COVID-19 crisis and we are prioritising our most vulnerable customers. 

This has been compounded by government public health restrictions on non-essential work travel which means we have less staff available to us during this busy time. 

Please rest assured your refund request is currently in the queue and will be processed."

As you can see, it's now the 15th of April, nearly 30 days in round numbers, and will probably be more than a month by the time you read this.

That said, we are still optimistic of seeing something in the bank eventually. 

As Bagand96 says, the task of refunding what must be millions of people to their respective accounts in a fraud-free manner is a huge endeavour, so it's not altogether surprising it's taking quite a while. It's not just Ryanair processing being impacted by covid restrictions, decreased staffing levels etc., it's everyone's banks and card companies too. 

I intend to update again when we do see something in the bank account which will then give people something of an idea of how long in total this refund process might take for others.

All the best, stay safe, catch up again soon I hope.

jamsplat

After successfully applying for a refund on 20/03/2020 I have just had an email from Ryanair giving me voucher codes. I appreciate times are hard, but they're not the only company hit hard by this virus and some of us need our money back. I doubt very much we will book with them again, Easyjet refunded within 48 hours of us making contact- they do it there and then while you're on the phone. 

bagand96

Update

Received an email today from Ryanair, with a voucher attached to the value of my booking that was cancelled. I'd never requested a voucher - I had used their online form to request a refund a couple of weeks ago.  They make no reference to the refund request, just detail the voucher, valid for 12 months, can be used on one booking or spread across multiple if you don't use the value etc.  

Full details of the voucher and FAQs https://www.ryanair.com/ie/en/useful-info/refund-voucher

Ryanair say if you don't want the voucher you can request a cash refund, and it points you to the link above, which points you to online chat.  They also state that with Covid-19, there will be significant delays in processing refunds, until after the crisis has passed.

I'm guessing that the previous filling in of the refund form has resulted in the voucher, and if you want cash you would need to contact them again once you have your voucher.

Fortunately I'm not in much rush so I'll leave it as a voucher for now.  I may well use it, but might request a refund once I have more of an idea how the aviation industry starts to recover.

cbrown7

Same as the previous two posters. I applied for a refund for my cancelled flights, I have correspondence from Ryanair confirming my refund application. This evening I have received an email with a voucher attached, dated for expiry one year from now.
There is a link in the email which just takes you to their site where you can use chat, I presume, to request a refund. In the email there is the usual blurb that they are busy, if you request a refund it will take some time, you are the back of the queue, that sort of thing.
I suspect what they have done is actually not allowed under EU flight delay rules, in that I applied for a refund and that is not what they have supplied. Maybe if it were another airline, or they hadn't taken quite so long to get to this point, I might be a bit forgiving. But as it is money-grabbing (and retaining) Ryanair I'm not in mind to get to the back of the refund queue again. Other than complying with the hoops Ryain want me to go through to get a refund what are my options?

cbrown7

Oh hang on a minute, just spotted this bit of info on the web site arrived at via the refund link in the email.
"You can request a cash refund however bear in mind we will place your request in the cash refund queue until the COVID-19 emergency has passed."
Beg pardon, which bit of 'we are processing your refund' relates to this?

rjhfandclf

I've not received one of these latest stalling options ... yet (despite a claim accepted 17/03), however, it is totally irrelevant. Ryanair are legally obligated to refund your cancelled flight(s) if that is what you prefer. I would refer back to the succinct Guardian link of a few days ago ... https://www.theguardian.com/money/2020/apr/10/airlines-law-refunds-voucher-schemes-coronavirus. Refund is supposed to be prompt, however the old adage of 'possession being 9/10ths of the law' prevails as long as it is virtually impossible, economically, to challenge RA's and others' two-fingered approach. Of course they would much prefer everyone to leave their cash in the airline's hands. Hopefully a few will even forget it is there, perhaps? 

Most will no doubt have noticed the standard RA marketing response, highlighted at the bottom centre of the linked page quoted in earlier post above (under photo of happy group of revellers in foreign bar - presumably having taken up RA's kind offer (sometime in the distant future) whilst those who foolishly demand their money back are still stuck at home?...

" Can I receive a cash refund instead of voucher?

You can request a cash refund however bear in mind we will place your request in the cash refund queue until the COVID-19 emergency has passed. 

We highly recommend using the refund voucher as these are readily available and you can book flights on all Ryanair Group airlines in over 200 destinations in Europe and the Middle East."

But book when - and who really would - with an airline with nealy 100% of its fleet grounded until further notice?

northwest1965

bagand96 said:

Update

Received an email today from Ryanair, with a voucher attached to the value of my booking that was cancelled. I'd never requested a voucher - I had used their online form to request a refund a couple of weeks ago.  They make no reference to the refund request, just detail the voucher, valid for 12 months, can be used on one booking or spread across multiple if you don't use the value etc.  

Full details of the voucher and FAQs https://www.ryanair.com/ie/en/useful-info/refund-voucher

Ryanair say if you don't want the voucher you can request a cash refund, and it points you to the link above, which points you to online chat.  They also state that with Covid-19, there will be significant delays in processing refunds, until after the crisis has passed.

I'm guessing that the previous filling in of the refund form has resulted in the voucher, and if you want cash you would need to contact them again once you have your voucher.

Fortunately I'm not in much rush so I'll leave it as a voucher for now.  I may well use it, but might request a refund once I have more of an idea how the aviation industry starts to recover.

We are the exact same stage as you it would seem. However this is for a cancelled September flight to Zadar. How is that Covid19 related?
Not willing to accept a voucher. Has anyone tried to go through credit card company? what was the result?

jamsplat

Barclaycard don't want to get involved with ours, extraordinary times blah blah. If I hear that one more time I swear I will roll my eyes until they fall out. I have noticed these are extraordinary times, and it's not just travel industry jobs at risk. 

I can't request a refund online in My Account as the flight was cancelled and doesn't even show in Past Trips, there's no record of it at all. I am in the Ryanair Bot chat online and have been in the queue for a live agent for over 2 hours now. Has anyone had any success getting through to an agent on this, or is it just a pretend scam page? The more this goes on the less likely I am to ever choose to travel with Ryanair. Michael O'Leary was boasting a few months back that they had 4.4bn Euros in cash reserves and could ride this out...

bagand96

northwest1965 said:

We are the exact same stage as you it would seem. However this is for a cancelled September flight to Zadar. How is that Covid19 related?
Not willing to accept a voucher. Has anyone tried to go through credit card company? what was the result?

Your credit card will likely tell you to wait for your refund from Ryanair.  They aren't refusing refunds, just saying they're going to take a while.  You'll need to go on their online chat to get your refund request in.  At this stage, I guess it doesn't matter if a flight was cancelled due to Covid19 or another reason, there's hundreds of thousands of refunds to do and they'll all end up in the same queue.