The new HFP chat thread – Friday 27th March

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• Michael says:

  27 Mar27 March 10:39

  2500 Tesco cc points arrived yesterday for Rosie the tabby’s pet insurance. I hope she stays fit and well over the next few weeks.

  • Lady London says:

    27 Mar27 March 12:03

    coronavirus is longstanding in cats and has not been able to be got rid of in the cat population so I hope your tabby keeps ok next few weeks.

    Unfortunately cats don’t take stay at home restrictions seriously 🙂

• Ross says:

  27 Mar27 March 10:42

  Hi all, I have a question regarding virgin cancellations. I had a work trip booked and my customer invited my wife and daughter too, so I made a points booking (I had some to use up) with a cash portion too for both of them.

  The flights were for 24th March and were cancelled by virgin on 11th March (Tel Aviv). I submitted the refund request on the 11th and heard nothing back.

  I chased yesterday via text and got a pretty fast reply. They told me refunds will take up to 90 days. I asked about the points and they were immediately reversed.

  It seems to me that they are trying to hold onto cash for as long as possible to keep themselves afloat?

  Is this worth a chargeback or should I persist for a speedier refund?

  • Kip says:

    27 Mar27 March 12:34

    Virgin refunds will take a few weeks but arrive in the end. Charging back will only complicate it. Mine took about 4 weeks. I doubt there’s anything nefarious about it – they’re just overwhelmed at the moment.

• RuedIger Schroeder says:

  27 Mar27 March 10:46

  Wonder whether anyone else got trouble with Hotels.com?

  Had prepaid, non-cancellable reservation with arrival date yesterday. Value about £1k

  I am unable to get in touch with Hotels.com to discuss possible refund or goodwill gesture, as suggested on their Facebook page.

  Contacted the service portal, received a call back from Arizona. Was told they can’t help, because it’s a UK booking. They transferred the call to the UK. Was on hold slightly over four hours, than the call was cut off.

  I have not received any help or communication, despite having tried Phone, Facebook and Twitter.

  This behaviour and poor service will be remembered when it comes to booking hotels again. Personally I am very disappointed with Hotels.com, expected better.

  • Bilbo Baggins says:

    27 Mar27 March 10:53

    Google ‘Hotels.com chat’. Select you want to cancel, input your email and booking ref, then select other and it will try to connect you to an agent. You might have to try a few times during the day as often they are all busy and it will say try later, but I’ve got through about 3 times out of 10 with a 50min wait over the last three days.

  • Rui N. says:

    27 Mar27 March 10:59

    That´s very weird. Since last week, all hotels.com bookings became refundable (even non-refundable ones), and could easily be cancelled online under “manage my booking”.
    I had trouble because I had a booking using a Tesco voucher, and the US call center was able to help me fine.
    If you stay was not cancelled by the hotel, now that the check-in date has passed, you are more dependent on their goodwill, since you are technically a no-show.

    • Nick M says:

      27 Mar27 March 11:25

      That’s strange. When I spoke to Hotels.com they said that Tesco vouchers were completely non-refundable, only the cash portion of the booking could be refunded. What was the outcome in your case Rui?

• Vit says:

  27 Mar27 March 10:51

  Anyone can share their experiences about chargeback? I have done a total of 4 transactions disputes:

  2 with Travelup for Air China: Got email confirmation agreed not to charge any agency fees since early Feb but I have not heard back since then from them so decided to file a dispute to get my money back. They mentioned to me though that credit might take up to 6-8 weeks but once advised this to amex, they said yes i can file a dispute.

  2 with Travelup for Cathay Pacific: Nothing from them after multiple email; even with CX cancelled the flights (travelling mid April). So decided to file a dispute. Might go on to lose this one later…

  Got all the disputes credit back but if I lose any of the disputes above — will I be charged dispute fee by amex?

  Cheers,
  Vit

  • Lady London says:

    27 Mar27 March 11:49

    Hi @Vit

    I recall your earlier posts on this.
    Just wanted to say I hope you get your money back but I would never begrudge a travel agent an admin fee if they had one in their contract, in this kind of situation. Yes I want my airfare back but for decades now, airlines pretty much stopped travel agents earning anything from the airline for flights, i.e. no commission.

    So if I used an agent to book I would let them have their admin fee without quibble. Mostly they’re legally entitled to it as well, provided it was stated in their original ts and c’s.

    • Lady London says:

      27 Mar27 March 11:52

      @Vit for your other question your claims are not unjustified and I gather the actual practice of cardco’s is only to charge a dispute fee where a claim turns out to very clearly be unjustified.

      • Vit says:

        27 Mar27 March 16:52

        I hope so too. The first dispute for Air China is justifiable (I hope) as the flight has been cancelled since early Feb but money was never showed up since then.

        For the Cathay Pacific, the airline has allowed for free cancellation since early March and been emailing them (travelup) since then but no response — whatsoever, until now that Hong Kong is close to all foreigners then CX cancel all their flights on Monday. I filed dispute on Wednesday using this as evidences then amex said fine. Got all money back today.

        I guess if the agency was going to claim back, it would be £75 per booking which I guess AMEX will just take from my account without even have to tell me?

  • Anon says:

    27 Mar27 March 13:56

    I’ve currently got a S75 dispute with TravelUp.

    HSBC credit card used and they said it would take about 30 days but sounds confident I’d get the money back.

    From what I heard TravelUp is not in good shape financially and not processing refunds at all.

    • Vit says:

      27 Mar27 March 16:48

      Thanks Anon for sharing your experiences. I keep getting this “rest assured” from the CEO but nothing else from the actual customer service team which might be the case as you said. I have got all credit back (£1.5k) to my amex account today.

      @LadyLondon, thanks for your advices. No, I don’t mind being charged agent fees but what I was hoping for is at least a no later than a few days or a week max. timeline for a response; hence, justified by the agent fees. From what Anon mentioned above — it does not look good.

      I am dealing with Lastminute.com and they seems alright so far — late response but no longer than a few days.

      While I understand most airline / agency trying to keep holding to the cash — some of us are struggling with the balance sheet as well. 😐

• signol says:

  27 Mar27 March 10:53

  I’ve been wondering, if we cancel our Avios redemption (family of four, summer holiday to California) then we’ll get the points and most of the taxes back. But, what are the chances of an Avios devaluation in the coming months? As there will presumably be a lot of people in the same position as us, with more Avios to burn for the next year, and the company short on cash and needing to reduce the burden of Avios out there? I just wonder what other peoples’ thoughts are on this.
  Thanks

  • Rhys says:

    27 Mar27 March 11:10

    It’s worth noting that BA already controls the Avios burn rate by controlling the number of seats it releases for redemptions.

  • Rob says:

    27 Mar27 March 11:26

    Unlikely – BA needs all the goodwill it can get after this and planes will remain quiet for some time.

  • signol says:

    27 Mar27 March 11:34

    Thanks both – much appreciated!

• michael says:

  27 Mar27 March 10:56

  Still struggling with BA for a cash refund. Perhaps my sit is unusual – a flight + car booked for May by deposit with balance due tomorrow. BA have cancelled the outbound but not the inbound. In the 1 successful attempt to speak to someone @ BA yesterday was told I MUST cancel as the inbound flight was still valid – and if I cancel I lose deposit. Manage My Booking shows the o/bound cancellation but doesn’t allow me to proceed to a refund process – only to cancel. And I get the odd email from BA about ‘my forthcoming flight’!!!!
  any advice? Should I sit tight, lapse the deposit, and go for a refund later when everything dies down?

  • Lady London says:

    27 Mar27 March 11:58

    Complete rubbish. If you booked as a BA Holiday then you are entitled to the whole thing back as cash not voucher under ATOL and, I believe, under BA’s own ts and c’s.

    If you booked them separately then stickier but for flights standalone the relevant legislation is EC261 which gives you right to full refund if they cancel any part of your booking or reschedule it significantly. You do not have to take a voucher.

    For hotel try same route(s) as above. If it fails go straight to cardco s.75 or chargeback on basis you did not get what you paid for. Also check your insurance

  • David says:

    27 Mar27 March 21:16

    I had flights + hotel booked through BA Holidays, one of my inbound flights was cancelled and when I finally go through to BA on the phone (Hadn’t tried too much as travel wasn’t until May). They processed the cancellation right away and I got the credit back on my BAPP about a week later.

• Peter Callaway says:

  27 Mar27 March 10:57

  I’ve just received my first (of what will be several) e-vouchers from British Airways for a cancelled flight. This arrived by email with a code but nowhere in the email does it state the value.
  I’ve gone onto BA.com and cannot find anything there either to let me know the value of the voucher.
  How is one to know that BA have actually given you full credit for the flight cancelled, and if one has several e-vouchers to use how can one work out the most efficient way of using them.
  Does anyone else feel like me on this?
  Thanks

  • Reeferman says:

    27 Mar27 March 12:54

    Mine arrived this morning too – exactly the same: no monetary value stated. However, it did have the original booking reference, so I’ve kept a copy of the original booking with the cost shown – just in case BA’s IT fails (hard to imagine, I know!!!) when redemption time comes.
    It seems the flight has to be taken (as apposed to booked) within 12 months of the original outbound flight that was cancelled – so not easy for people like me who generally book 12 months in advance, so already have all planned future bookings in place.

• Michael C says:

  27 Mar27 March 11:04

  Some BA joy last night – after failing, like everyone else, to even get in line on the general number, I managed to speak to someone on the Newcastle number 0191 246 3933  after just about 20 minutes of the usual Spanish guitar hold music – no “press 1 if…” etc. etc.

  The first leg of my 2-4-1 Japan/HKG had been cancelled, but not the return, nor the HND-HKG avios in between. The lovely lady cancelled everything, all with full refund, return of Avios and return of voucher. She DID say, however, that the BA refunds were taking longer than ever, maybe now weeks.

  • Sandgrounder says:

    27 Mar27 March 11:18

    I’m waiting for Delta to pull the plug on a redemption flight booked with Virgin miles before calling for a refund. Not looking forward to that one, and apparently refunds are taking up to 100 days to process at the mo.

  • BJ says:

    27 Mar27 March 11:44

    Were the 241 outward and return flights on the same PNR or two different PNR? If the latter, did she charge you 2x£35 or 4x£35? I got my refund in under 48h so you might get it quicker than you expect.

    • Michael C says:

      27 Mar27 March 11:59

      2 different, BJ. She said the return had been cancelled, but I hadn’t received news of it. And all without the 35 GBP. We’re not in any rush, so all good!

      • BJ says:

        27 Mar27 March 12:16

        Ok good, shouldn’t be any fee if they cancelled. I am just trying to figure what happens if we cancel 241 flights since BA started adding the return flights with a different PNR. This beans they are now charging 4x£35 to cancel such bookings instead if 2x£35. Wondering if any readers have got this reduced to 2x£35.

  • Guillermo says:

    27 Mar27 March 12:38

    Was your booking to fly in the next 72 hours? As I am in the same situation but when I called they told me that they cant process the refund until I’m in that period (although I was waiting only for 6 minutes…). My outbound flight (that was cancelled by BA) was in late April, but I would like to get the money back earlier (it is more than 1.2k pounds…).

    • Michael C says:

      27 Mar27 March 14:31

      ¡Hola Guillermo! Mine cost about the same and yes, was within the 72 hours when I rang (but I cancelled online first using the workaround…which the BA rep was a bit surprised to hear [that I’d managed it online – didn’t mention workaround!]).

      • Gtellez says:

        27 Mar27 March 16:26

        Thanks! I guess that I’d have to wait then… since the workaround doesn’t work for me…

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