Ethiad cancellation charge

mkh113

Hoping to get some advice about a cancellation charge we've incurred from Ethiad. Me and my boyfriend were due to fly to Sydney in April but the flight was cancelled by Ethiad due to Covid19. We've spent months going back and forth with Budget Air about getting a refund and yesterday we received an email to say that our refund was being processed. However, hidden in the email was the information that Ethiad had charged us 375 GBP each (about half the price of the fare) as a cancellation fee. From doing some research online this seems to have happened to lots of other people as Ethiad claim that it is part of the terms of the ticket type that we bought. However, my understanding is this was only if we cancelled the flight, not if Ethiad did. We are trying to get our credit card company to dispute the charge on our behalf but was wondering if anyone else had been in a similar situation and had some advice? 
Thanks!

Caz3121

Etihad's Conditions of carriage section 10.2 implies that there should be a full refund
https://www.etihad.com/en/legal/conditions-of-carriage
As you are not the airline's customer any refund would be given to BudgetAir (their customer) I would expect you to have fees deducted by BudgetAir (not as high as £375)!) however it sounds like Etihad have dealt with this as a voluntary rather than an involuntary change. As your agent, BudgetAir will need to deal with this with Etihad