BYOJET refusing refund after agreeing refund..

swm76_uk

Apologies for the long post, but I'm After a bit of advice if possible, I think our travel agent is trying it on.. 

We booked  return flights to Tokyo with an online company called BYOJET (who are part of Flightcentre in the UK) on  2nd May 2019 for our wedding anniversary to travel 27 March 2020, returning 2 weeks later.  

Obviously due to the pandemic we couldn’t travel , in the meantime BA changed the flight destination from Narita airport to Haneda airport, saying I could request a refund if this was not acceptable. and I tried to contact Byojet for advice on a refund only to be met with a constant ringtone, before being cut off..  I tried BA, no answer. they eventually replied to my email on 4th April saying I had to go through Byojet as the contract was with them. 

Last resort, I completed the byojet credit shell form on 5th April, then.. nothing until 12th May  when I received an email from Byojet saying they had received the request and were working through them. Ok I thought, its all in hand itll take time, but we will get there.. 

12th June I receive an email from Byojet asking me to contact them to discuss the options I had.  

I rang and managed to get through discussed the fact that BA had changed the destination and I would like a refund. I was put on hold for 10 minutes, before being told the refund had been agreed and I would get a refund of the full amount, £3,300 within 12 weeks. I asked for an email conformation which then agent said would be sent. All good then, just a bit of a wait. Well, not quite... 

This morning I wake up to the following email- 

'Greetings from BYOjet Travel! 
 
I have sent this email in regards to your booking. We are sorry to inform you that the refund request for this booking ha been rejected by our accounts team due to ticket already expired more than 01 year from date of issued. Ticket valid from the date of the ticket issuance. Where in, your ticket issued last 02nd of May 2019, once the refund request after the ticket issued it was not permitted anymore and the ticket will be forefeited. 
 
We will not process any refund anymore and no amount to be credit back on your end.  
 
Please be advised this email is monitored between 7am to 7pm AEST (Australian Eastern Standard Time)  Monday to Friday only.    
 
Regards, 
Kieth '

Obviously, a little bit of shock sets in. 

I rang them only to be told its been more than a year I had forfeited the money. No refund. 

 I tried to explain that I had tried to resolve it well within a year only to be told, no, end of story we will not refund, goodbye, phone disconnected. 

As you can imagine, I’m a bit upset by this.  I understand we are in unprecedented times, but surely this isnt correct?   

Life__Goes__On

You're not the first to complain about BYOJet.
What method of payment did you use to pay?

Alan_Bowen

Tickets normally expire one year after issue, that is correct but the flights were cancelled under a year after issue, assuming the tickets were issued back in May 2019. It is their negligence that they didn't put the tickets in for a refund in time, not yours. Remind them of their duty of care and that if they do not process the refund you will instigate a chargeback on the card used to pay for them, and learn that sometimes your best friends are not the cheapest!

swm76_uk

Life__Goes__On said:

You're not the first to complain about BYOJet.
What method of payment did you use to pay?

im not suprised, to be honest. its quite the money spinner..!
It was on Credit card.
Alan_Bowen said:

Tickets normally expire one year after issue, that is correct but the flights were cancelled under a year after issue, assuming the tickets were issued back in May 2019. It is their negligence that they didn't put the tickets in for a refund in time, not yours. Remind them of their duty of care and that if they do not process the refund you will instigate a chargeback on the card used to pay for them, and learn that sometimes your best friends are not the cheapest!

yep, thats the next step i think.
Ive just had an interesting conversation with BA, it appears BYOJET contacted them on the 7th May, a month after I sent the form to them, and advised BA I would be getting a credit shell. news to me. to add insult to injury, because of this BA closed the booking, We had also used 35,000 AVIOS points to prebook the seat spaces, which i thought would be an easy refund. BA have said because BYOJET told them they were going to credit shell us, we cannot reclaim the points now..!
this is all getting very stinky!

swm76_uk

Update-  took legal advice, they recommended a chargeback attempt. God knows how we're going to get the avios points back though..

swm76_uk

update- well, a success! visa have credited the initial amount back to our account, ‘while an investigation is conducted..’ so I imagine we will have to leave it in situ in case byojet decide to appeal against it..?  

blindman

swm76_uk said:

update- well, a success! visa have credited the initial amount back to our account, ‘while an investigation is conducted..’ so I imagine we will have to leave it in situ in case byojet decide to appeal against it..?  

BYOJet have 45 days to claw the money back.

Did you pay by AVIOS as well??

swm76_uk

blindman said:

swm76_uk said:

update- well, a success! visa have credited the initial amount back to our account, ‘while an investigation is conducted..’ so I imagine we will have to leave it in situ in case byojet decide to appeal against it..?  

BYOJet have 45 days to claw the money back.

Did you pay by AVIOS as well??

Ah, ok. We’ll leave it alone for the time being then. We’ve waited  4 months, what’s another 2 in the grand scheme of things!
no, after the initial booking, we prebooked the seats via BA with the avois points. Completely seperate transaction not involving byojet at all, but According to BA byojet contacted BA Saying they were going to credit shell us, so BA closed the booking and the avois points have disappeared into the ether, which considering the value of them, doesn’t seem right.

blindman

swm76_uk said:

o BA closed the booking and the avois points have disappeared into the ether, which considering the value of them, doesn’t seem right.

BA are very sneaky regarding refunding seat costs

This article may (or may not) be relevant.

I'd certainly chase BA for the Avios back

swm76_uk

blindman said:

swm76_uk said:

o BA closed the booking and the avois points have disappeared into the ether, which considering the value of them, doesn’t seem right.

BA are very sneaky regarding refunding seat costs

This article may (or may not) be relevant.

I'd certainly chase BA for the Avios back

Thanks for that, I’ll give it a look.
yea, BA.. very sneaky what they’ve done, no doubt, I’ll get onto them this week. Regardless of the outcome, they will not be used by me When we rebook the Japan trip. Or ever, to be honest. 

As for byojet/flight centre? I will actively discourage any friends and family from using them. 

swm76_uk

Surprise surprise, an email from byojet this morning. obviously following their discovery of the visa charge back-

‘Good morning, We have checked our latest statement and can see that we have not yet received your funds from the airline.  We are currently receiving over 2000 refunds per week that we are processing back to our Customers.   As soon as we receive your funds we will pass them back to your original form of payment.  Kind Regards, BYOjet’ well, the moneys been credited back to us from visa, so we’ll keep that, thankyou. Good luck getting your money back from BA, byojet. I hate to think how many people who don’t need the mental stress of sorting this out are undeservedly out of pocket having just accepted the initial response from companies like this.