Ryanair refusing refund

Sooooo

I’m just not sure where to go from here and I’m hoping advice will help me decide.

Having contacted Ryanair by chatline/telephone/letter/email/online forms. Having gone through the claims process with Resolver and escalated to CAA (this might still be ongoing) I’ve just received an email from Ryanair that once again says they sympathise with my experience but they remain adamant that I am not due a refund. Here are the circumstances. I’d really appreciate views and/or advice.

March 2020 we’re in France due to fly home on the 18th at 17:45pm on pre booked and paid for flight. France goes into first lockdown on the 17th. On the 17th Ryanair email advises flight is cancelled. I get us on a flight on the 20th and prepare to stay two days longer. That evening, still the 17th I get another email from Ryanair saying that France is very likely going to suspend all flight operations to and from Europe and this is likely to happen over the next few days. The email suggests we can book ourselves on an earlier flight – The 18th!! The flight we had!! I think it’s a mistake because that is our cancelled flight!?!? With the advice given we can take no chances as we want to get home.  We find we CAN change the booking back to the 18th – same date and time we were originally booked for.  However to do so costs another £138. Due to Ryanairs advice about French operations likely to cease we’ve no choice but to pay the additional fee on top of what we paid for THAT flight.  In summary on the morning of the 17th we were booked on the 17:45pm flight 18th March – In the evening of the 17th we were booked on the same flight but had had parted with another £138.

Ryanair say under their Ts & Cs no refund is due because we chose to change our flight.  This is preposterous because we only changed the flight to the 20th because they cancelled our flight on the 18th. They then told us ALL flights were at risk over the coming days and that we could fly on the 18th!!! How can they justify taking £138 on top of what I had already paid for the very flight I ended up flying on????

[Deleted User]

Because the flight was cancelled, you moved to another flight and when you then wanted to move back again once the original flight was reinstated, the cost of that flight had gone up.

You're unlikely to get much in the way of goodwill out of Ryanair. It's not their business model.

bagand96

At that time it was clearly a changing situation and things were moving fast. As zx81 said it's likely the flight was cancelled and then reinstated after government announcements. 

I do however sympathise with you and can see why you're aggrieved. Not sure what to suggest though. If you booked via credit card I'd be tempted to try and claim via Section 75 (as long as you have proof of the Comms and timeline from Ryanair?). Failing that you could try small claims court action but as an Irish company I'm not sure there's an easy way to do that anymore. 

Might be one for travel insurance but after any excess might not be worthwhile. 

User_101122

Try a chargeback for the £138 if you paid by credit card. It may or may not work, you’re not going to get anywhere with RyanAir.  I owe them £40 from getting a double refund last year and trying to resolve that is a nightmare too.

unforeseen

No chance so far after the incident. This was over a year ago. 

[Deleted User]

Does seem mighty unfair that you flew back on your original flight home but as has been said, the stress of trying to get a refund may not be worth the loss.   You are out of time for a chargeback and that and a section 75 would likely fail anyway as you got what you asked for - even if you felt pushed into doing it!   Insurance likewise.  

Tough as it is to swallow, you may just have to.  We’ve all learnt such a lot since Covid arrived!  

Sooooo

Thanks for responses .. I may try one last attempt and then cut my losses as advised 🙄🙄

bagand96

I was wondering whether it might be worth trying a curveball of somehow involving EC261 Air Passenger Rights.  Send in a claim for the cancellation of your original flight.... which I expect they will reply with "the flight operated" which would give you a starting point to again have the conversation about the nonsense of the situation.

I'm not sure you'd have any success, they would almost certainly claim "extraordinary circumstances" (although that only gets them out of compensation)

sheramber

Was th flight number of the original flight the same as thee flight number of the re instated flight? 

CKhalvashi

sheramber said:

Was th flight number of the original flight the same as thee flight number of the re instated flight? 

Bearing in mind this would be an Irish case instead of a UK one, I'm not sure this would make a difference. The only exception to this would be if the flight should have been operated by Ryanair UK on an RK flight code, and I can tell you now it wouldn't have been.

The situation with compensation will be IMO based on whether there were extraordinary circumstances. It may sound straightforward, but definitely won't be. Ryanair operate some flights to/from/within France in a 'W' pattern, meaning that if the plane (for example) should have come from Italy-France before routing to the UK, back to France and back to Italy and given the situation in Italy at this time, there would be a clear extraordinary circumstances claim there.

With Ryanair doing their best to get people home before a perceived flight ban came in, it was OP's choice to change the flight after the original one was cancelled. I therefore deem it irrelevant what the flight number was. Flight A was cancelled, and OP moved onto flight B. OP then made a choice to change their booking onto something comparable to flight A.

There was nothing obligatory about this, and Ryanair are known to advertise things that most people don't need, such as overpriced insurance, which are also not obligatory. Ryanair have therefore IMO stuck to the contract OP had with them and there are no rights to a refund of any monies paid.