Section 75 refund refusal for cancelled flights

Westin

I think they are misinterpreting how airfare and taxes are compiled and displayed.  I would ask them to reconsider and indicate your intention to escalate to the financial ombudsman.

Westin

Caz3121 said:

suesh said:

Yes the flights were cancelled. 

SAA should be refunding then as per their conditions of carriage above.  What reason have they given for not abiding by these?

SAA have no money.
I believe they have only been offering credit vouchers.

Thrugelmir

Besides the fact that SAA aren't based in the UK and therefore are outside regulatory jurisdiction. The airline collapsed on the 2nd May 2020. The new company will have no liability for the old other than gestures of goodwill. 

suesh

Caz3121 said:

suesh said:

Yes the flights were cancelled. 

SAA should be refunding then as per their conditions of carriage above.  What reason have they given for not abiding by these?

I agree. They gave no reason - just a statement in their email to me. Their phone lines are closed and their website gave no hope that a refund would be considered. They seem to think they are being generous in saying a credit voucher is transferable to another traveller.

suesh

I've just sent another email off to Amex and will post an update when I get a reply. Thanks for all your comments.

suesh

I told Amex that I would forward a complaint to the Financial Ombudsman on Monday 15th February if they were not prepared to reconsider their decision. I have just received an email from them to say they have reviewed the documentation and now agree that my claim falls within the section 75 monetary threshold and will continue to investigate. No guarantee that I will get the money back but progress. Thank you again for giving me the extra confidence I needed to fight back.

suesh

A final update. The Ombudsman took a very long time to start investigation and I needed to resend everything I'd sent to AMEX. Eventually they found in my favour because AMEX had processed my claim incorrectly in the first place. It was a recommendation before going through the full process but AMEX accepted that and repaid the flight costs in full. I will not be using AMEX in future. The whole process took over 2 years!

DullGreyGuy

Upsidedownandaround said:

I suppose all you can do is take them to the Ombudsman. "cash price" is the words used in the legislation and that would usually exclude taxes but it does create an absurd situation when the tax and fees are about 80% of the purchase made.

I would be interested in knowing where you get that definition from... appreciate this is an old thread.

Cash price normally just means how much youd pay if you paid cash rather than by credit... remembering this legislation was drafted before it was illegal to charge extra fees for paying by credit card.

The fact its £80 + taxes wouldnt make any difference, it'd be eligble claim as long as the total was over £100 per item. AmEx's point will have been that their losses were only £80 as the taxes were recoverable but S75 doesnt discriminate between recoverable and unrecoverable losses and whilst there is a logic to their argument the legislation doesnt require the application of logic. 

CKhalvashi

DullGreyGuy said:

Upsidedownandaround said:

I suppose all you can do is take them to the Ombudsman. "cash price" is the words used in the legislation and that would usually exclude taxes but it does create an absurd situation when the tax and fees are about 80% of the purchase made.

I would be interested in knowing where you get that definition from... appreciate this is an old thread.

Cash price normally just means how much youd pay if you paid cash rather than by credit... remembering this legislation was drafted before it was illegal to charge extra fees for paying by credit card.

The fact its £80 + taxes wouldnt make any difference, it'd be eligble claim as long as the total was over £100 per item. AmEx's point will have been that their losses were only £80 as the taxes were recoverable but S75 doesnt discriminate between recoverable and unrecoverable losses and whilst there is a logic to their argument the legislation doesnt require the application of logic. 

I agree with your interpretation here.

You couldn't purchase the flights without the taxes and fees so it therefore stands clearly to me to be reasonable that the 'cash price' would be the full price paid and therefore Amex have made a mistake.

As above, SAA has no money and their business has been (or will be) transferred to a new company. They aren't reasonably in a position to pay as a direct result of this.