Easyjet not playing fair with our refund on lots of levels.

AndyLincoln

We had flights booked to Granada Spain last June which obviosly didn't happen. A month before the flight we got an email from Easyjet saying that the flights weren't cancelled, yet, but they understood passengers may be nervous of travelling and why don't we take a voucher as if the flight goes ahead and we decide not to fly then we wouldn't get any option for refund/voucher. We took the voucher which was what I'm sure they wanted. The flight was subsequently cancelled but we were told we weren't entitelled to a refund as we'd already requested a voucher. I feel we were railroaded into that decision. We re booked for this April but have just been told that those flights are now cancelled. The email we got said we had 3 options, rebook alternative flights, voucher or refund. I contacted easyjet and asked for a refund but was told that we could only have another voucher as thats what was used to make the booking. To add insult to injury, Easyjet no longer fly to Granada from the UK so we can't rearrange our trip and have also lost the upfront payment we made for the hotel which was non refundable.
Surely as Easyjet has cancelled this booking they should refund our money?

eskbanker

It's not an EasyJet-specific thing and is pretty much standard practice that when travel providers cancel bookings paid by voucher, they simply reprovide the voucher rather than going all the way back to cash - once you accept a voucher in the first place, that's generally irreversible (although it has been reported on here that BA have diverged from the norm on this).

Edit: if you made a separate non-refundable hotel booking (rash in these times!) then that would never be the airline's responsibility to deal with, so you'll need to see if your travel insurance will cover that.

Browntoa

You willingly accepted the voucher 

AndyLincoln

Browntoa said:

You willingly accepted the voucher 

Yes, but underhand attempt by Easyjet not to have to give refunds. IMHO

AndyLincoln

eskbanker said:

It's not an EasyJet-specific thing and is pretty much standard practice that when travel providers cancel bookings paid by voucher, they simply reprovide the voucher rather than going all the way back to cash - once you accept a voucher in the first place, that's generally irreversible (although it has been reported on here that BA have diverged from the norm on this).

Edit: if you made a separate non-refundable hotel booking (rash in these times!) then that would never be the airline's responsibility to deal with, so you'll need to see if your travel insurance will cover that.

The hotel booking was made pre covid and re arranged to this Easter, but thanks for your input

AndyLincoln

I would have thought that as now Easyjet have completly pulled the route that would add some weight to the argument for a refund? If the route was still available I would be rearranging for a later date and also rearranging the hoel accomodation, but that's not an option due to the route being pulled. 

Upsidedownandaround

I don't see what was underhand about it. They offered you a voucher and you accepted it because presumably you weren't going to fly if the flight went ahead and didn't want to be in a position where you ended up losing the price of the flight and potentially the hotel costs. You must have surely weighed this up at the time.

It sounds like all you can do is ask Easyjet for a cash refund but it appears you have already done that.

k3lvc

AndyLincoln said:

I would have thought that as now Easyjet have completly pulled the route that would add some weight to the argument for a refund? If the route was still available I would be rearranging for a later date and also rearranging the hoel accomodation, but that's not an option due to the route being pulled. 

No - in 'normal' times you may have got some flex (and may not have been offered the vouchers to start with). They still operate flights to other locations in the area which I suspect they'll claim are close enough to Granada to be a reasonable alternative.

If you think you have it bad then have a look at those in this thread who have thousands invested in flights to USA with an airline who now only flies to Scandinavia from UK  Norwegian long haul cancellation - cashpoint exchange - Page 2 — MoneySavingExpert Forum

eskbanker

AndyLincoln said:

eskbanker said:

It's not an EasyJet-specific thing and is pretty much standard practice that when travel providers cancel bookings paid by voucher, they simply reprovide the voucher rather than going all the way back to cash - once you accept a voucher in the first place, that's generally irreversible (although it has been reported on here that BA have diverged from the norm on this).

Edit: if you made a separate non-refundable hotel booking (rash in these times!) then that would never be the airline's responsibility to deal with, so you'll need to see if your travel insurance will cover that.

The hotel booking was made pre covid and re arranged to this Easter, but thanks for your input

In which case, if the hotel have already been flexible, they'll hopefully agree to move the booking again, even though you'd obviously need to weigh up the cost of using an alternative airline to get there (or just fly to Malaga)?

AndyLincoln said:

I would have thought that as now Easyjet have completly pulled the route that would add some weight to the argument for a refund? If the route was still available I would be rearranging for a later date and also rearranging the hoel accomodation, but that's not an option due to the route being pulled. 

Them pulling the route may indeed add weight to your argument but if that extra weight still isn't enough to persuade them to refund you then you don't really have anywhere else to go with it.

[Deleted User]

AndyLincoln, I don't see any wrongdoing whatsoever by easyJet. These are difficult times for all and we have to accept that unfortunately. Very different world now and we are all affected , one way or another. Count your blessings, Regards

parcival

I remember several of these emails from EJ about some of our flights, about a month prior to departure. I said to Mrs Parcival at the time that you couldn't blame EJ for trying to get us to take the voucher. However it was absolutely obvious that the flight would be cancelled so we waited and as sure as eggs is eggs they were and we got a refund. I don't think it was sharp practice at all.