Norwegian long haul cancellation - cashpoint exchange

Retiredwelshman

My opinion (and it is just that an opinion non legal) - Norwegian will either be bailed out by their government or go bust.
If it goes bust then the cashpoints are gone - absolutely gone - you will become a creditor but will be lucky to see a1p in the pound or krona.
Again IMO somebody will have to take a card company to the Ombudsman for a ruling (or court action) to determine whether acceptance of the cashpoints is covered by S. 75 or not.

It is not good news either way.

FACTorFICTION

Hi All
We are a family party of 10, we purchased back in Q4 2019, 10 tickets. We had decided to book a family holiday over 5 years ago for the planned dates of Aug 2020 and chose N Air.

With the COVID Pandemic hitting the world in Q1 2020 and most countries closing their borders, we called Norwegian Air’s customer service desk and requested advice on what we should do. We were clearly advised on the 22 May 2020 to take cashpoints as it was a limited offer and then we could just rebook when the pandemic was over, as the cashpoints will be stored in my account. We were also advised that the 2021 flights would not be released until later in the year of 2020, so we would have to wait till then to rebook the tickets. 

I appreciate things have not gone to plan and the Pandemic is still with us, and like most of us, N Air is probably struggling with the loss in revenue.

I’m sorry for the loss of jobs however, our family now has circa.£6700 worth of cash points that we cannot use for our dream Disney holiday in the USA. We were advised and understood it ,that by taking the cashpoints we could just rebook the flights to the USA again when the Pandemic was over. This has now changed as you no longer fly to the USA. I appreciate that this was something that you may have had to do, due to the current climate however, our family should not be in this position we now find ourselves in and out of our control.  We cannot use these cashpoints to fly to America. The decision to take the cashpoints was based on Norwegian Air's advise.  We now feel trapped with the value of cashpoints that cannot be used for the purpose it was intended and saved for!

We are kindly requesting a cash refund paid back into the card used account. We only want what we paid in….We even asked them if they cannot pay the money back, we are willing for them to book our flights direct from other carriers. 

Some of our family members have saved for this holiday over 5 years with small children, for this trip to Disney USA. The hotels, Disney tickets and hire cars have all been refunded or re-booked for 2021 without any issues.
The answer back from N Air is below..

Response (27/01/2021 10:32)

Thank you for contacting us with your claim: 210126-000566. 
Unfortunately, in this instance we are unable to honour your claim for a monetary refund for your unused ticket as the entire amount has been provided as travel credit in CashPoints. When submitting a claim for CashPoints the claimant must accept the conditions for reimbursement which state that the request is binding, and once submitted, the cost for the entire booking for all passengers will be converted to travel credit as CashPoints. Monetary claims for the cost of the ticket will not be accepted after the claim is submitted.
We're sorry for the disappointment our response may cause. If you require any further information, please reply directly to this email.
Kind regards,
Customer Relations Team
If you are not satisfied with the outcome of your complaint or claim with us, you may wish to escalate your claim to an external dispute resolution provider. 

Date created: 26/01/2021 15:26
Date Last Updated: 27/01/2021 10:32

Not really helpful and they don't seem to have even bothered to address the e-mail directly to our circumstance - just a standard e-mail. Shocking - I believe we were miss sold these cashpoints and we are willing to take this as far as possible to get it resolved. Bad Form Norwegian Air!!

SamTimBen

We are in exactly the same situation as you.  We've had no luck with Norwegian unfortunately.  Please let me know how you get on pursuing your claim.  In the meantime we're still trying to get the money back via our bank, having raised a dispute with them. 

Mills80

Has anyone had any luck with raising a dispute with the credit card company ? Mine has told me that Norwegian air has acted within the law and they won’t raise a dispute for me. Has anyone had any luck in getting money back and by what means ? 

Westin

I only have just over 12k Cashpoint in my account and these from flown services rather than in lieu of a refund from a cancelled flight.  Thought it might be useful to share an email I received from Norwegian this morning regarding their position:

Quoted from email:
"The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has affected the global aviation industry, including Norwegian, in many ways. As a result, Norwegian has entered into an examinership process in Ireland and a reconstruction process in Norway with strict legal requirements that are impacting all aspects of our business. Today, we are announcing some temporary changes to our Norwegian Reward loyalty program.

1. Pausing of Reward program benefits with Norwegian while in reconstruction process
We will be pausing the Norwegian airline-related benefits of our loyalty program. Your membership will remain active, but during this time it will not be possible for you to earn or spend CashPoints or Rewards on Norwegian’s products or services (flight tickets, extra baggage etc.). You will still be able to earn CashPoints with our other Reward partners.

2. Following the pause, a potential limit on CashPoint spend
Once the pause has ended, you'll be able to earn and redeem CashPoints and Rewards on Norwegian’s products and services, but we will reserve a right to limit the spending of CashPoints as means of payment until the impact of the ongoing pandemic is under control and Norwegian’s commercial activities can return to a new normal.

3. An extension of CashPoints and Rewards validity
We recognise that the above changes, as well as the ongoing pandemic and government travel restrictions, may not allow you to earn and spend your CashPoints and Rewards as you would normally. With this in mind, we will be giving all members with CashPoints due to expire on 31 December 2021 the opportunity to extend the validity of those CashPoints by one full year. You will receive more information about this.

The expiration of Rewards has been paused since last year, as well as the number of flights needed to qualify for Rewards adjusted, and this will continue until further notice.

Norwegian Reward is a transparent customer loyalty program, and we will be keeping it that way. We will not be devaluing CashPoints (1 CashPoint still equals 1 Norwegian Krone), and we aim to reopen the airline benefits with our award-winning program as soon as the reconstruction and examinership processes, and the COVID-19 situation allow it. That said, we do understand that these temporary changes may affect the way you would like to use our loyalty program, and we apologise for any inconvenience caused."

End:
https://www.norwegian.com/en/about/company/reorganisation/?utm_source=Responsys_Reward&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=2021-05-NON-NORDICS-REWARD-UPDATES

bagand96

Westin said:

I only have just over 12k Cashpoint in my account and these from flown services rather than in lieu of a refund from a cancelled flight.  Thought it might be useful to share an email I received from Norwegian this morning regarding their position:

Quoted from email:
"The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has affected the global aviation industry, including Norwegian, in many ways. As a result, Norwegian has entered into an examinership process in Ireland and a reconstruction process in Norway with strict legal requirements that are impacting all aspects of our business. Today, we are announcing some temporary changes to our Norwegian Reward loyalty program.

1. Pausing of Reward program benefits with Norwegian while in reconstruction process
We will be pausing the Norwegian airline-related benefits of our loyalty program. Your membership will remain active, but during this time it will not be possible for you to earn or spend CashPoints or Rewards on Norwegian’s products or services (flight tickets, extra baggage etc.). You will still be able to earn CashPoints with our other Reward partners.

2. Following the pause, a potential limit on CashPoint spend
Once the pause has ended, you'll be able to earn and redeem CashPoints and Rewards on Norwegian’s products and services, but we will reserve a right to limit the spending of CashPoints as means of payment until the impact of the ongoing pandemic is under control and Norwegian’s commercial activities can return to a new normal.

3. An extension of CashPoints and Rewards validity
We recognise that the above changes, as well as the ongoing pandemic and government travel restrictions, may not allow you to earn and spend your CashPoints and Rewards as you would normally. With this in mind, we will be giving all members with CashPoints due to expire on 31 December 2021 the opportunity to extend the validity of those CashPoints by one full year. You will receive more information about this.

The expiration of Rewards has been paused since last year, as well as the number of flights needed to qualify for Rewards adjusted, and this will continue until further notice.

Norwegian Reward is a transparent customer loyalty program, and we will be keeping it that way. We will not be devaluing CashPoints (1 CashPoint still equals 1 Norwegian Krone), and we aim to reopen the airline benefits with our award-winning program as soon as the reconstruction and examinership processes, and the COVID-19 situation allow it. That said, we do understand that these temporary changes may affect the way you would like to use our loyalty program, and we apologise for any inconvenience caused."

End:
https://www.norwegian.com/en/about/company/reorganisation/?utm_source=Responsys_Reward&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=2021-05-NON-NORDICS-REWARD-UPDATES

Interesting update.  That's the problem with airline loyalty programmes (not just Norwegian).  They are a completely discretionary scheme that the airline can change at their whim. 

I wonder if this might help anyone's argument with their bank for a Section 75?  I'm thinking of those who's flights were cancelled and took Cashpoints in lieu of a refund.  Now that Norwegian have unilaterally decided to suspend the opportunity to spend them completely, would that change anyone's case with the bank for a S75?

Those who cancelled their own bookings for Cashpoints might not have much of an argument, but if Norwegian were the ones to cancel the flight it may well be worth a try.

Alan_Bowen

I agree, this appears to be a fundamental change and effectively suspends your rights to do anything with the points and (assuming they even survive, they were offered another bailout yesterday by their government but only if they could raise three times as much themselves and investors must be very hard to come by now) at some point in the future the ability to use them to pay in full for flights, which was the only reason anybody accepted them in the first place, can be curtailed. Definitely, time to go back and argue s75 and if necessary go to the Financial Ombudsman Scheme if the bank still says 'no' (but be aware of very long waiting times with the FSO)

RickJCronin

Hello all,
I am in the same boat, large payment to Norwegian for US flights. Swapped to cashpoints due to first lock down but rebooked for April this year in good faith. Flights were cancelled infefinitely and refund given in cashpoints. Norwegian have completely refused to move from their 'policy'. I took some earlier advice here and emailed the CAA, Nowary but I don't really hold any faith in this helping. 

MJones1993

I am also in the same position. I booked flights from London to Rio, Brazil with my MasterCard and also accepted the CashPoints option when my flight has initially cancelled. Norwegian have also told me they will not refund me.

I’ve submitted a chargeback request to my bank Lloyds as MasterCards terms and conditions indicate it may be possible to submit a chargeback request in these circumstances. 

I will let everyone know how it goes.

Slugsy77

Hi, we also booked flights to Florida, had to cancel due to Covid-19, was told the only option for a refund was cashpoints, which was fine as we was happy to book to go with them when we could again. Booked flights again with points which as we now know are now permanently cancelled and they have refunded the cashpoints again. 

When we was on the online help chat the host said we could book a few nice short haul trips instead, really helpful that when all we want is to go to Florida like we planned. We currently have about 34000 cashpoints which we never wanted, can’t currently spend, and when we can they don’t go where we want to! 

Tried to claim on holiday insurance and visa but both have refused as we accepted the cashpoints willingly. 
The holiday of a lifetime which we have saved so hard for has turned into an absolute nightmare.
I so hope someone with the right expertise can help us all. 

J.