Etihad Refund after nearly 2 years of original payment

samkma

I originally booked tickets in January 2020 for travel in June 2020, did not happen as flights cancelled due to covid travel restrictions.

I was offered a travel credit for the value of my tickets (ie x4 passengers) (total value £2191) this credit is valid for 2 years expiring in a few months time.

I cannot travel or book tickets before this date as lost of personal and other covid cirsumstances. Also eitihad have hiked their prices alot compared to Emirates, I have to fork out more than £700 to get tickets for 4 of us on same route!

My emails and phone calls to Etihad are falled into the abyss, is there anyway I can get my hard earned money back?

Any help / guidance much appreciated.

[Deleted User]

Did you accept the credit note or are you still waiting for a refund?

samkma

I did not accept the credit voucher, I was given one only knew about this once I received an email from Etihad.

There was an option for EU/UK customers to get a refund but I was given no choice.

I called and was told it cannot be cashed in.

[Deleted User]

Why were you given no choice? What country are you in?  This sounds complicated...

samkma

Deleted_User said:

Why were you given no choice? What country are you in?  This sounds complicated...

Based in UK. Voucher was issued without me asking.

eskbanker

samkma said:

There was an option for EU/UK customers to get a refund but I was given no choice.

It's not clear what this really means - in what sense was there an option that you couldn't choose?

It sounds like you may be in a similar position to those issued with unwanted vouchers by BA, so you could try your chances in small claims if you can make a decent case that a legally-obliged refund wasn't possible and that you refused to accept the voucher offered instead:

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/news/2021/11/british-airways-refund-court-win-cash-vouchers/

Before that though, if you bought the tickets directly from Etihad with a credit card, you could make a section 75 claim via your card provider for the airline's apparent breach of their legal obligations....

Westin

I think we also need to better understand if the airline cancelled the flight or if the passenger requested a cancellation or change to their flight reservation because of the changing travel restrictions or just disinclination to travel at that time.

samkma

Thank you for the response, I have finally managed to get an advisor from the call centre raise this with the team baased in Abu Dhabi.

Just to clarify to above to replies
1. I was not given an option between voucher or cash - unwanted (not asked for it) vouchers were issued. When I called they said the payment has been converted to vouchers that cannot be cashed in as per the voucher terms ( I did not as for it nor agree to it)
Tried the CC claim Barclay card rejected it as airline said customer was refunded in vouchers.

2. Flights cancelled by Etihad and changed to a later flight then said the flights are grounded due to lockdown. 

Hope I make sense to your questions here.

eskbanker

samkma said:

Tried the CC claim Barclay card rejected it as airline said customer was refunded in vouchers.

But the whole point of claiming under section 75 is that the card provider is held directly liable for any breach of contract, and if the airline only offered you vouchers that you neither wanted nor accepted, then that breached their legal obligation to issue a cash refund if that's what you wanted - they're only allowed to issue vouchers by agreement with the customer.

It sounds possible that the airline's involvement in the claim signifies that it was treated as a chargeback claim by Barclaycard, rather than section 75, so you should still have the option of insisting on that, assuming the flights concerned were to/from the UK/EU and thereby within the scope of the EC 261/2004 regulations?

samkma

Found this website on MSE looking to complain to the Ombudsman first as the complaints to the airline falls in deaf ears.
https://refundsnotvouchers.org/

CKhalvashi

The most important question here is where the cancelled flight was departing from.

If UK/EU/Ukraine/Georgia/Armenia (and probably the Balkans plus some others) then there is a legal right to a refund within 7 days.

If not, then depending on the departure point (we can look) a voucher may be legally acceptable as there would be no legal breach, especially in the case of a country with little to no consumer rights where the contract is king.