Flight refund

lebber

Hello all, 

Hoping someone may be able to shed a bit of light on our situation

We had booked flights with a credit card and were due to fly to Australia via Hong Kong on 21st March, which we had to cancel due to the FCO advising against all but essential travel a few days before. We contacted the travel agent to cancel our places on the flights due to this, they advised they would only refund the taxes and told us to put a claim in with our travel insurance to cover the rest of the flight cost.

I submitted the claim with our travel insurance who contacted me to say they would not pay anything unless we could prove that we had had refusal from both the travel agent and credit card provider to refund the money. I then submitted a claim with the credit card provider around the end of April - in mid-June the full amount appeared in my account as 'Temp credit' from the travel agent. Other than an email from the them asking me to withdraw the dispute, I've had no response from the travel agent and can't get through on the phone and Barclays don't seem to know anything about it! I've scoured the internet for guidance but it mostly seems to be regarding flights that were actually cancelled, whereas our flights were not.

Anyone had/having a similar experience? I assume I have to just wait and see if the money gets claimed back by the travel agent, but does anyone know if there is a time limit for this?

Any advice would be much appreciated.

bagand96

If your flights went ahead, then it's unlikely you are due a refund from the airline or travel agent.  The vast majority of flights sold are non-refundable.

The insurance company will say they want proof of no refund from airline and credit card as an anti-fraud measure, to ensure you're not being payed out twice.  Whilst partly true, essentially they are just stalling you and delaying your claim.

The situation with the credit card is strange.  It seems they started a chargeback or Section 75 against the transaction.  Like I said, if you had non-refundable flights, a chargeback is not correct.  The agent will not get the money back from the airline so they will be left out of pocket.  It is entirely an insurance situation - but they've muddied the waters!

lebber

Thanks for the response, I had a feeling it should be insurance that pay up. I'll just have to wait to hear back and leave the money where it is.