Ryanair taking back refunded flights money

chrisMc9

not sure if anyone else has had this experience, back in 2020 at the start of the pandemic we had flights booked with ryanair for portugal in June, Ryaniair cancelled the flight in May 2020 and offeered us a voucher or refund, we went for the refund.
They kept trying to get us to swap to a voucher but we persisted with the refund, eventually in September 2020 they emailed to say the refund had been processed back to our card.
All good took a wee while but issue sorted.
That is until 2 weeks ago when we decided with friends to book a flight to Rome for March 2022, found the flights, logged on to Ryanair account and booked and paid for the flights, sorted a short break booked.

Then I logged back in to my account with ryanair a week later to check the luggage options we had booked, I was presented with a "you have an outstanding payment" message saying I couldn't access my booking until it was paid.

I tried to discover what the item was for but couldn't get past their payment screen.

I paid it with my credit card (£131.32) thinking once I pay it I'll be able to see what it was for and use my credit card company to get it back if there is an issue.

on looking at my account details it still didn't say what the extra payment was for, so I contacted their online chat support where I was told that the payment was in relation to the cancelled booking for portugal and the "chargeback" reclaim I had made for that flight.

I copied them the email from Ryanair that confirmed that I had been issued a refund and that I hadn't done a chargeback and reclaimed funds from them.

I know have a complaint open with Ryanair in order for them to pay the money back to my credit card asap.

Still waiting on a reply.

So watch out if you did do a "charge back " for any flights back in 2020, Ryanair are reclaiming it all from any new bookings!

emmajones1976

Yes there have been a few threads on this, although it seems in your case you didnt do a chargeback anyway and it was an error.

Ryanair are well within their rights to do it where chargeback has been used incorrectly, many people think a chargeback is a silver bullet to get their money back if the Government didnt let them travel, the fact is this wasnt Ryanairs issue and if they still ran the flight, they were fulfilling their contractual obligation.  People should have contacted their insurer.

Sandtree

The chargeback issue was well documented... MSE did the article Ryanair bans passengers who got Covid chargeback refunds (moneysavingexpert.com)  and even one of the big solicitor firms passed comment at Payback for Chargeback – Travel post Covid-19 Restrictions? (dacbeachcroft.com)

Obviously the oddity in your case is the claim you didnt do a chargeback

CKhalvashi

As Sandtree states, this looks like an error on Ryanair's part if the flights were cancelled and no Chargeback took place.

As an aside, were these flights booked on your account, and were there any users who may have done a Chargeback in 2020 or 2021? If no, it may be worth asking your bank for details of the transactions and contacting Ryanair with the evidence. Ryanair's help team on Twitter seem quite responsive, as I'd agree that this does need to be looked at and potentially refunded to you.

Thrugelmir

chrisMc9 said:

I copied them the email from Ryanair that confirmed that I had been issued a refund and that I hadn't done a chargeback and reclaimed funds from them.

I know have a complaint open with Ryanair in order for them to pay the money back to my credit card asap.

Still waiting on a reply.

RyanAir will have to go back through their internal records to confirm what actually happened. They won't have randomly selected your account. There will be a reconcilation process that involves a full audit trail back to the chargebacks levied on their own bank accounts. Was the amount charged to your account correct. i.e. the amount of your claim ?