Flightgift. Anyone had a refund?

bigfer

Was given a flightgift card for £160 last year and used it to book flights with Ryanair to Porto in June. I paid an additional £50 on my Mastercard to make up the difference. Flights cancelled and Ryanair have just advised that they will refund £200 back to a third party credit card (not mine) presumably who ever flightgift got to book the flights.
I have been in contact with flightgift and they advised that they have requested a refund from the third party but "As we are not the decision-maker in the outcome of each specific case, we have to wait for our supplier to respond".
Anyone had any experience with flightgift and if so did you get your refund? I will be somewhat miffed if someone else has pocketed my refund. Do I have any protection because I part used my credit card for additional payment?
Any advice / comments appreciated.

Alan_Bowen

It appears to be a Dutch company and according to the honest reviews, there appear to be hundreds of very dodgy 5-star reviews which appear as soon as a bad review is posted, no one is getting refunds, some have been waiting 6 months for flights which according to airlines, were never paid for in the first place. The other issue is they charge a substantial surcharge of around 25% above the actual fare price which you could buy from the airline or a typical travel agent! A quick search shows The Independents Simon Calder warned people against it in 2018 but that obviously had no effect.
Ryanair are claiming refunds are now being paid within 30 days of a request so I would chase Flightgift and if necessary then make a chargeback claim, the problem is you didn't buy the card so you technically didn't suffer the loss, only the payment you made of £50 so that may be all you will get.. keep pushing Flightgift!

bigfer

Thanks for the reply. The gift card was a retirement present. I guess the person purchasing the card did not realize what a dodgy company gift card is. When we booked the flights, they added a good wedge off the quoted prices. I would advise against using these rogues in the future, it's bad enough dealing with the great Satan Ryanair without an intermediary.