An airline blacklisting passengers?

LegalSparrow

Has anyone else who had to resort to a S75 to get a refund for flights last year had trouble rebooking this year? A close family member has had his and his partner's card rejected at the payment stage despite a healthy credit card balance. We wonder whether his url has been blacklisted by said airline, not known for its consumer care, or whether there might be a less paranoid reason.

tacpot12

I think it unlikely that the airline would let a booking get as far as the payment stage before declining to take the booking, although I can see that the card being declined gives them an easy way out of the situation. I expect it is due to some problem with card, and not due to a S75 refund. If your family member had assaulted a member of the cabin crew, then they might well be blacklisted, but I think most airlines would not do so for something like securing a refund via S75. That said, I can imagine Ryanair doing this because they are so profit-conscious. If there is a risk that carrying a passenger will not make them a profit, I expect the would rather not carry that passenger. Your comment that they were not known for their consumer care makes me wonder if it is Ryanair. 

If it is Ryanair, I doubt you will ever be able to prove that they were blacklisted, unless there is a whistle-blower who is prepared to reveal this publicly. Who knows, it may come out in the future. 

Aylesbury_Duck

It's possible.  Amazon are known for doing something similar, closing the accounts of people who they perceive have wrongly exercised a S75 claim, and those who are seen to be abusing their returns or cancellation facilities.  They can also close the accounts associated with that card and address.

Ultimately, a business can decide they don't want someone's custom.  Whether that's the case here or not can only be determined by asking them or seeing if they're able to book on another card.

Sandtree

S75 is a claim against your credit card company and they are the ones that pay you. In theory they inherit your right of claim against the merchant but as far as I am aware they are rarely exercised. 

A chargeback, which is paid by the merchant, is more likely to trigger a response.

gettingtheresometime

I put in a S75 claim against Easyjet due to a refund not forthcoming and I've booked 2 subsequent flights with them

LegalSparrow

Thanks for all the helpful comments. I can assure you that he certainly hasn't assaulted anyone!  The airline wasn't Easyjet and their cards are certainly functioning elsewhere.  I hope they can manage to book on a pc with a different url as they have very young kids and the alternative departure airports aren't convenient, plus grandma has already paid the deposit on their holiday accommodation!

born_again

S75 is paid by the card company.

Given fraud to travel co's is very common. More likely it is just a basic security check by the bank.
Ring bank, they will tell you

IvanOpinion

LegalSparrow said:

Thanks for all the helpful comments. I can assure you that he certainly hasn't assaulted anyone!  The airline wasn't Easyjet and their cards are certainly functioning elsewhere.  I hope they can manage to book on a pc with a different url as they have very young kids and the alternative departure airports aren't convenient, plus grandma has already paid the deposit on their holiday accommodation!

I doubt that the URL is the problem (maybe you meant IP address, which I would also doubt would be the problem).
What you could try is booking using incognito mode on the browser.  If that works then I would suggest that they clear out their browsing history and cookies.

Tokmon

LegalSparrow said:

Has anyone else who had to resort to a S75 to get a refund for flights last year had trouble rebooking this year? A close family member has had his and his partner's card rejected at the payment stage despite a healthy credit card balance. We wonder whether his url has been blacklisted by said airline, not known for its consumer care, or whether there might be a less paranoid reason.

You seem to be getting your terms mixed up. The URL is the address of the website he would be visiting and is the same for everyone who visits it.
He will have a unique IP address that they can see (Which will be the external IP address of their router if they are connected to one). Restarting the router and clearing the cookies will give a new IP address and erase the record of him visiting the site but they will still have to enter their name and address so they can be traced this way in their systems.

davidmcn

The flights forum (or the COVID-related travel forum) might be more useful places to ask - there are no consumer rights in play here - they don't need to do business with you if they don't want to.

Jenni_D

Tokmon said:

LegalSparrow said:

Has anyone else who had to resort to a S75 to get a refund for flights last year had trouble rebooking this year? A close family member has had his and his partner's card rejected at the payment stage despite a healthy credit card balance. We wonder whether his url has been blacklisted by said airline, not known for its consumer care, or whether there might be a less paranoid reason.

You seem to be getting your terms mixed up. The URL is the address of the website he would be visiting and is the same for everyone who visits it.
He will have a unique IP address that they can see (Which will be the external IP address of their router if they are connected to one). Restarting the router and clearing the cookies will give a new IP address and erase the record of him visiting the site but they will still have to enter their name and address so they can be traced this way in their systems.

Just to advise - doing this is no guarantee of changing the IP address. Changing the router (or its MAC address) might work, but only restarting the router rarely changes the IP address these days.