American Express Chargeback/Dispute/Section 75

keadd1985

Morning all,

Around a year ago I purchased some flights from Ryanair via my American Express Credit Card. These were around £800.

Due to Coronavirus the country we were flying to was on the amber list, as this was a holiday, we were not legally able to travel. Ryanair verbally agreed we could change these flights, free of charge, to another date in 2022. When I called them back to do this they said completely the opposite and disagreed, calling me a liar, wanting to charge us around £300 to change the flights. I have other family members on the same flight who were allowed to change without charge. Due to this I requested this be lodged as a complaint which they would not do. All communications sadly have been verbal.

I opened a dispute with Amex and they gave me this money back and the case was then marked as closed. I thought this was the matter resolved. Although the case was closed and the money returned to me Amex have since re charged my account to now say they believe the charge to be valid. A couple of questions here.

1) Can they close a case, refund the money, and then re charge my account?
2) I have now raised this under section 75 (as the Amex dispute system is chargeback rather than section 75) can I expect any kind of outcome in my favour?
3) Any advice on how or what I should do next?

I have been lied to by Ryanair and now I am £800 out of pocket through no fault of my own, please help!!

Thanks in advance all....

eskbanker

Chargeback entails a provisional reimbursement of the money, while the matter is referred to the merchant for their viewpoint, for which they're typically given 45 days, although I think Amex may be different.  If the merchant challenges the chargeback, and Amex agrees, then the refund will be reversed, so that's presumably what's happened here.  Even beyond that period allowed for such challenges, merchants have sometimes succeeded in getting refunds reversed.

Both chargeback and section 75 are useful tools in the event that you don't receive what you've paid for, but if the flights you bought operated and you chose not to travel on them (amber list status in itself doesn't prohibit travel), or even if there were FCDO warnings against travel, that doesn't necessarily mean that you actually had a valid claim against the airline, so chances are that s75 would fail in the same way as chargeback.

That doesn't excuse any false information relayed verbally by Ryanair though, but that dispute is unlikely to be one that your card provider can resolve for you.  No idea why others booked on the same flights were allowed to change without charge - were they booked at the same time?  Many travel companies have had different policies in place depending on exactly when the booking was made, so check what your booking date was and then validate your options against what Ryanair publish on their website.... 

Sandtree

keadd1985 said:

Due to Coronavirus the country we were flying to was on the amber list, as this was a holiday, we were not legally able to travel. 

This cannot be true as the Amber list was only created when it became legal to travel again and as such you have either incorrectly stated it was Amber or it was perfectly legal for you to travel and you have chosen not to because of the complexities of returning from an Amber country. 

S75 will deal with what the governing law and contract states and so you need to look at any T&Cs about the ability to change the flight that existed at the time of booking. Most budget airlines, or standard tickets on non-budgets, dont allow free changes for change of mind. 

pbartlett

as above really - the flights operated but you chose not to be on them, albeit for perfectly understandable reasons.

you should try a claim on your travel insurance and see what they say.

Upsidedownandaround

Ryanair have a 'no flight change fees' policy which was introduced for flights booked after some point last June. You still have to pay the extra cost of flights though if they are more expensive and baggage etc which is non-refundable.

I suspect this is what the person you spoke to was referring to when saying you could change flights "free of charge". Even if you could prove they explained this wrong to you this is a customer service issue.

Unfortunately as explained above your only option would appear to be travel insurance.