Cancelled football trip EasyJet

ezzyj

My daughters football team raised money to fund a trip in May 2020 to play football in Barcelona.  The girls tickets were paid for by the fundraising and the parents chaperoning paid for their own tickets. The trip was booked by one of the parents on his credit card.  The trip was obviously cancelled due to Covid, as the team were still planning on the trip the vouchers option was chose and rebooked for May 2021, this was then again cancelled due to Covid. Some of the girls have now left the team including the girl who’s parent booked the trip.  EasyJet refuse to give the money back for the trip as the second trip was booked using vouchers.  There is £6000 of vouchers in the name of the parent that booked the tickets who’s daughter no longer plays for the team.  He has contacted his credit card for a refund and they have opened a case but months later nothing has been sorted. Help!!

Caz3121

I would expect a credit card claim to fail as vouchers were accepted. (similar issue likely to be with insurance)
It is common for refunds to be issued to original form of payment. When the first flight was cancelled a cash refund would have been an option but for the second trip if paid with vouchers the refund would be in vouchers
It may be best to concentrate on how to get the vouchers into the name of the booked passengers rather than one single person although this may need the main booker to work with EasyJet on this - I am guessing this was booked as a group booking

Westin

I would tend to agree with @Caz3121 and focus on efforts to split the credit into individual vouchers for named passengers.  I think that is your only hope.

Alan_Bowen

I entirely agree, I think there is a real danger that the credit card issuer would only refund the family member travelling and not the whole group, on the basis that the rest of the families presumably paid by cheque or cash to the person making the booking and therefore have no right to claim against a credit card.

CKhalvashi

This will be a case of splitting vouchers into individual travellers or the parent buying the vouchers from you.

Easyjet may be willing to assist with the first part, but there will be a paper trail and terms attached to the voucher which will satisfy any refusal to refund legally.

CC company will be no of help here as Easyjet have done what was asked of them and there is therefore no breach of contract.

ezzyj

Easyjet have refused to break down the vouchers into individual names and won’t even change the name of the person on the vouchers! 

CKhalvashi

ezzyj said:

Easyjet have refused to break down the vouchers into individual names and won’t even change the name of the person on the vouchers! 

The problem you're likely to have here is that you don't have a contract with Easyjet in this case. Your contract is with the parent, the parents contract is with Easyjet.

Your options will therefore be limited.

You may be able to suggest to the parent that they should buy the vouchers from you, however this situation was always going to be a risk in not going down the refund and re-book process in the first place.

Westin

ezzyj said:

Easyjet have refused to break down the vouchers into individual names and won’t even change the name of the person on the vouchers! 

I’m surprised.  Was the request for this made by the current lead passenger?  Do they have the chat transcript from EZY or an email were this refusal is in writing?  There can be few situations where a £6000 credit held by one person on Easyjet is going to be seen as useful or even reasonable to hold.