Still no refund for Summer 2020 flights

sheramber

 

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2021/jan/19/refund-virgin-atlantic-cancelled-flight

nilanteh

csmith848 said:

Upsidedownandaround said:

Yes it is. But in your opening post you also said

"providing documents such as evidence of the governmental restrictions on travel to the US from the UK (not permitting us to fly) and written proof from Virgin Atlantic that we did not take the flight and that they were unable to provide us with a refund (because of our type of ticket)."

Maybe I'm misunderstanding but that implies the reason you didn't fly was because of US entry restrictions and you didn't take the flight rather than the flight was cancelled.

Why did you not just ask Virgin for a refund if you are saying the flight was cancelled?

Sorry, to be clear, we only obtained the letter from Virgin Atlantic confirming that the flight was cancelled after originally putting in my insurance claim.

(Out of interest here, if no one is permitted to fly from one country to another, do flights still go ahead and we just have empty planes in the air 😂.. wouldn't surprise me in this day and age.)

Virgin Atlantic just say that the ticket is non-refundable, unfortunately.

I took it from here. But if you never cancelled and the flights were cancelled by virgin they should be refunding themselves

eskbanker

csmith848 said:

Sorry, to be clear, we only obtained the letter from Virgin Atlantic confirming that the flight was cancelled after originally putting in my insurance claim.

Was this letter produced at your request after the event, to support an insurance claim?

It would obviously be expected that when an airline cancels a flight for Covid reasons (as opposed to late technical problems, etc), they'd notify passengers proactively in advance, at least by email or text if not in a more formal manner - did they do this?

Either way, I'm still baffled by their apparent expectation that you should claim from your insurance, as the EC 261/2004 regulations clearly required the airline to refund you in full within 7 days of them cancelling the flight, assuming you booked directly with them?

One other point about that letter - it refers to your booking originally having been on flights from/to Gatwick but that the booking was changed in May to Heathrow flights.  Is it possible that the reference to flights being cancelled related to the original Gatwick ones rather than the Heathrow replacements?