Is Section 75 or Chargeback appplicable or other option?

kuepper · 25 December 2024 at 10:04PM

Apologies for posting this here but someone suggested I transfer my post from 'Credit cards' to here and I don't know how to do that so reposting the same text:

I paid £829.25 to Booking.com for a return flight by cc. The flights were in 2 legs each way. For the inward journey one of the legs was cancelled by the airline and the other leg was therefore no use to me so I cancelled it, asked Booking.com for refunds for the 2 cancelled flights and booked new flights with Expedia. A month later Booking.com are saying they can't refund me because they haven't been refunded themselves by the airline (even though initially they said I'd get my refund within 10-15 days). I don't know whether that's true or not and the airline say they can't comment and said I'd have to deal with Booking.com. I'm around £1k out of pocket through having to buy new flights and not having any refund from Booking.com.

I contacted Citizen's Advice and they suggested asking my bank to raise a s75 claim. I message the bank to that effect and their reply didn't mention s75 just chargeback so I don't know what I'm supposed to do. As my outward journey was completed I don't know how the refund would be calculated so I haven't got a specific figure to quote for the amount of refund due, but I presume it wouldn't be 50% of £829.25 as I was meant to fly out from a different airport to the one I arrived at What happens in that case and what's the relevant route to use - s75 or chargeback - to reclaim the money for the cancelled flights?

Voyager2002 · 26 December 2024 at 3:01AM

A fair solution would be for your travel agent to pay you the same amount that you paid Expedia for your flight home, thus putting you in the position that you would have been in had the flight not been cancelled. So that is the amount to request when you make a S75 claim.

TELLIT01 · 26 December 2024 at 10:42AM

Were the two return flights booked as a single journey, or as two separate flights? If as two separate flights there may be no refund due as one flight was still operating.

Many flights arranged through sites such as Booking.com have low costs because they are non-refundable. There would be entitlement to a refund for a flight cancelled by the airline, but not if the person simply didn't use the flight.