Cash refund for cancelled Wizz Air flight

yncx

Hi all, we had a flight booked with Wizz Air for later this month, however, Wizz Air moved both our outbound and return flights by multiple days, effectively cancelling them.

They offered the standard options of accepting the new flights or rebooking on other flights on the same route with strict date restrictions, none of which work for us. Also, we found much cheaper Ryanair tickets (£300 vs £850 we paid for Wizz Air tickets - no brainer). Wizz Air also offered their standard swindle of getting a refund in their Monopoly money (Wizz credits), which I have no use for as we rarely fly with them and I generally don't trust them as a company.

I know that according to the EU261 / UK equivalent directive, they should offer a cash refund within 7 days, but that option is nowhere to be found and all their listed numbers charge a premium rate of £1.50/minute, so calling them is out of the question. Does anyone have any experience extracting the refund back from them?

I am aware they offer to convert the Wizz credit to cash but for that, you have to agree to their Ts&Cs which are very much not in your favour. By agreeing, you accept that the cancellation matter is resolved, thus waiving your rights to complain and/or use chargeback/section 75 in case anything goes wrong with the company. Also, it will take them 60 days to process the refund.

I am inclined to contact Barclaycard as I paid using their credit card but I'm afraid they'll just fob me off for not trying to contact Wizz Air first. Any help or advice is greatly appreciated!

Westin

yncx said:

Hi all, we had a flight booked with Wizz Air for later this month, however, Wizz Air moved both our outbound and return flights by multiple days, effectively cancelling them.

They offered the standard options of accepting the new flights or rebooking on other flights on the same route with strict date restrictions, none of which work for us. Also, we found much cheaper Ryanair tickets (£300 vs £850 we paid for Wizz Air tickets - no brainer). Wizz Air also offered their standard swindle of getting a refund in their Monopoly money (Wizz credits), which I have no use for as we rarely fly with them and I generally don't trust them as a company.

I know that according to the EU261 / UK equivalent directive, they should offer a cash refund within 7 days, but that option is nowhere to be found and all their listed numbers charge a premium rate of £1.50/minute, so calling them is out of the question. Does anyone have any experience extracting the refund back from them?

I am aware they offer to convert the Wizz credit to cash but for that, you have to agree to their Ts&Cs which are very much not in your favour. By agreeing, you accept that the cancellation matter is resolved, thus waiving your rights to complain and/or use chargeback/section 75 in case anything goes wrong with the company. Also, it will take them 60 days to process the refund.

I am inclined to contact Barclaycard as I paid using their credit card but I'm afraid they'll just fob me off for not trying to contact Wizz Air first. Any help or advice is greatly appreciated!

I think you are looking into this too deeply.  You can as you say convert the WizzAir Credits to cash and the process is well laid out in your account section on their website.  There is however a time limit to do this in.  Not sure about the 60 day timeframe you quote for the actual cash refund. Perhaps that is a maximum to cover themselves.  I would have thought it much quicker now and probablt dependant on how quick you make your claim to convert.

I doubt your credit card company will wish to get involved as WizzAir is fulfilling their obligations.

yncx

I've been meaning to update this, apologies it took me so long. 

TL;DR: Wizzair refunded the full price of our tickets within a few days. All it took was a call to their well-hidden local-rate special assistance number (033 0977 0444), a 25-minute wait on hold and a quick 5-minute chat with their friendly agent.

My case was a bit specific, so if you're interested in details, carry on reading.

The July flight was paid for using 120% credit from another flight cancelled back in February with the rest of the balance paid by a CC. I accepted the 120% credit in Feb as I knew I'll use it immediately to book the new flight in July. At that point, I fully accepted that I won't be able to get that credit back in cash once accepted and used.

After our July flight was cancelled, I was worried that by accepting the 120% credit, I'll lose any chargeback/S75 claims rights in case of Wizzair drag their feet with the refund. Hence my original post. However, after discovering the local-rate number and a quick call, they refunded the amount paid by CC straight to the card with the rest appearing as credit in my Wizzair account -- this was the same 120% value of the originally cancelled February flight.

During my research, I also found a (well-hidden) "credit conversion" form to claim back Wizzair credit (wizzair.com/en-gb/wizz-credit-conversion-request). Curious, I submitted it for the original February flight fully expecting the request to be rejected due to the credit being already used and again refunded. To my surprise, I received a 100% refund about a week later. 

I'm happy that @Westin was right and my doubts based on my previous bad experiences with Wizzair turned out to be unfounded on this occasion. I still don't appreciate some of their dark patterns such as premium customer care numbers and important information hidden away in their help section but I guess I'm happy that once requested, they now seem to process the refunds fairly quickly.

ItsComingRome

yncx said:

I've been meaning to update this, apologies it took me so long. 

TL;DR: Wizzair refunded the full price of our tickets within a few days. All it took was a call to their well-hidden local-rate special assistance number (033 0977 0444), a 25-minute wait on hold and a quick 5-minute chat with their friendly agent.

My case was a bit specific, so if you're interested in details, carry on reading.

The July flight was paid for using 120% credit from another flight cancelled back in February with the rest of the balance paid by a CC. I accepted the 120% credit in Feb as I knew I'll use it immediately to book the new flight in July. At that point, I fully accepted that I won't be able to get that credit back in cash once accepted and used.

After our July flight was cancelled, I was worried that by accepting the 120% credit, I'll lose any chargeback/S75 claims rights in case of Wizzair drag their feet with the refund. Hence my original post. However, after discovering the local-rate number and a quick call, they refunded the amount paid by CC straight to the card with the rest appearing as credit in my Wizzair account -- this was the same 120% value of the originally cancelled February flight.

During my research, I also found a (well-hidden) "credit conversion" form to claim back Wizzair credit (wizzair.com/en-gb/wizz-credit-conversion-request). Curious, I submitted it for the original February flight fully expecting the request to be rejected due to the credit being already used and again refunded. To my surprise, I received a 100% refund about a week later. 

I'm happy that @Westin was right and my doubts based on my previous bad experiences with Wizzair turned out to be unfounded on this occasion. I still don't appreciate some of their dark practices such as premium customer care numbers and important information hidden away in their help section but I guess I'm happy that once requested, they now seem to process the refunds fairly quickly.

0330 isn't a premium rate number. It's a non-geographic number charged at national rates and if you have inclusive mobile minutes, is taken from these.

yncx

ItsComingRome said:

0330 isn't a premium rate number. It's a non-geographic number charged at national rates and if you have inclusive mobile minutes, is taken from these.

I'm not claiming it is, in fact, if you read my post, you'll see I explicitly mention a "well-hidden local-rate special assistance number". 

However, the customer care number they post on their website is a premium-rate number. The 0330 number is hidden deep in their help section and they will refuse to talk to you about anything other than special assistance, which in this case luckily includes a cancelled flight. 

From their website:

United Kingdom 09 057 070 000

Rate per minute 1.45 GBP/min *

*Plus your phone company’s ‘Access Charge’.

Costs

Calls from mobile networks may be charged at higher rates

Access to premium rate numbers may be blocked from certain lines and cannot be called from abroad

‎€15.00 Call Centre Transaction Fee is charged per transaction for requests that are available online

This is what I mean by the dark pattern.