Cancelled Flight

Keep checking your airlines website and look up your reservation.

They will do anything they can to keep your money -- My direct flight to Paris turned into a rebooked 26 hour flight with several stops that took off within two hours of my original time schedule and of course would ultimately deliver me to a shut down country but preserved their ability to deny a refund.

Jane, what airline?

Even if the airline cancels the flight, don't assume you will get your money back. Air France cancelled our flights but refuses to give us our money back. They want us to take a voucher. I called and got no where. I then filed a dispute with my credit card company. They "temporarily" gave me back my money but might reverse it based on their investigation.

Same thing happened for a different trip we had planned for the end of May. We were to fly from Abbotsford, BC to Winnipeg on Swoop Airlines (no frills, budget airline). They cancelled our flight but despite their legal obligation, they will only give vouchers and refuse to give refunds. Again, I filed a dispute with the credit company.

Everyone, please no thread hijacking.

OP, it appears you are flying out of California aka US. Therefore you get your refund (if your flight is cancelled by the airline). You may have to make a call and sit on hold for a while but you will get your cash refund. The airlines (many) have been doing some feet dragging but the feds just busted their chops over it and they are falling in line.

Be aware of horror stories involving flights in other countries- different facts, different rules.

We are in the US and it hasn't worked yet -- I called but no action yet. I will publish the Airline if I don't succeed, but so far they are ignoring us and I am still working on it.

They technically by creating the ridiculous 26 hour indirect trip have tried to be within the fine print of not delaying the trip by more than 2 hours -- of course the arrival is 18 hours delayed. But the fact is that France itself is not permitting tourism travel.

This is what happened to us this past Tuesday, April 7. We were supposed to fly from Boston to Marseille on April 10 with American Airlines (operated by British Airlines). I booked our tickets with Expedia. American Airlines website states that if we booked with a travel agent, we have to cancel with the travel agent. Expedia states we have to call them (if we choose not to cancel online) 72 hours before our departure date.

Expedia also states they follow the rules of the airline regarding getting a refund or credit. And if it’s a credit, they follow the airlines rules re deadline dates.

AA website states we have to rebook by December 31, 2020 or one year from our date of booking, which for us is October 3, whichever come first. We absolutely cannot travel by October 3, and additionally, it might not be safe to travel then. So I decided to call Expedia rather than cancel online because I needed to talk to someone.

I had to wait one hour on hold before I got an agent. She told me my flight was cancelled, which I assumed; however, I never received an email from Expedia or AA telling me my flight was cancelled. But she told me I could only get a credit and had to use it by October 3. I argued with her; I was put on hold many times; then I was connected with a manager. We got disconnected and I had to wait for the manager to call me back. The manager told me I am eligible for a refund because AA cancelled. I will see the refund on my credit card statement in 1 to 8 weeks because of the large volume. I then received an email from the manager confirming all of this.

This whole process took about 4 hours!

Keep checking your airline’s website to see if they cancel. And then when you are closer to your departure date, call them. Or call the travel agent if you booked with a travel agent.

Hope this helps.

I booked a round-trip flight through FinnAir on American Airlines from Chicago to Paris back in November. The trip was for September 2020 and cost $290 round trip. Was I happy! Then all this happened. Anyway, yesterday I get an e-mail from FinnAir telling me that my return flight had been cancelled, and was not going to be rebooked. So I went to American Airlines and looked up my itinerary there. I currently have a flight from DFW to Paris that leaves 2 hours before my flight from Chicago arrives in Dallas. And I do have a return trip, just now through Newark before connecting to Chicago. Obviously the likelihood that this trip is going to take place is remote at best, and none of these flights are set in stone. I fully expect the whole thing to be cancelled -- why wouldn't they, when the fare is so low? In the meantime, it will be interesting to watch how things change.

Sadly, a lot of folks are learning a lesson through all of this: stop booking through “agents” or third parties. Book your flights directly with the airline flying the plane.

And don’t give up. If the airline cancelled the flight (and didn’t rebook you on another flight for that day within the appropriate time limits) just keep pushing on your refund. Remember that “agent” would prefer you take the credit/voucher as they want that future booking and any fees they collect from the airline, they are serving themselves and not you.

No, booking "directly" is no guarantee in these times. Aer Lingus has been ignoring all my emails to Customer Service for over 3 weeks now. I keep insisting on a Refund and they keep sending me rebooking or voucher offers. Their original emails were careful not to use the "cancelled" word, it was "no longer offering that flight".

:-(

In the last few days I've received what seem to be automated messages from their system telling me that my flight is "cancelled". When I include that to the Customer Service => 2 days ago => still ignored.

I've heard that other people have gotten refunds. Coincidentally they seem to be members of Aer Lingus's Flight Club. I'm not.

What onefastbob said.

I use Expedia occasionally to check availability of flights, but I always book directly with the airline, and so far have been able to avoid the super budget folks like Air Lingus, Norwegian, Wow, etc.

Aer Lingus is the State Airline of Ireland. Don't believe they are considered "Budget". Their prices were close to the other major carriers when I booked.

Just looked and apparently that's no longer true:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aer_Lingus

(snip)
Aer Lingus is the flag carrier airline of Ireland and the second-largest airline in the country after Ryanair. Founded by the Irish government, it was privatised between 2006 and 2015 and it is now a wholly owned subsidiary of International Airlines Group.

Booking directly with the airline may not be a perfect solution - but it's a heck of a lot better than booking through a 3rd party!

We booked with the airline. Of course we couldn't fly April 1 to Paris although they created this bogus indirect route after canceling the flight we booked. They are still resisting refunding and of course we at 76 will not be able to fly before the end of this year which the voucher would require.

I was told when I called that it would be refunded but it hasn't happened and the guy on the phone couldn't do it himself but said I had to apply for a refund which I had a couple of weeks ago -- not response from the airline. They clearly are hoping to push us into a voucher we can't use or to wait until they bankrupt out of all these tickets. I will lose $2500. They did refund myi grandchild's ticket as she was flying unaccompanied minor for part of the trip and those tickets are refundable in these circumstances.

RobertH......you can keep emailing until you are blue in the face. But if you want to get a refund, you will have to call. Most airlines will only issue cash/credit card refunds if you call. That is assuming the airline canceled your flight and not you.

I called. They claimed it would be refunded but had to be done on line. I filled out that form. When I checked, they said I should email them. I did that. They pretty clearly intend to steal my money.

So good news for us. American Airlines after numerous calls, emails etc etc has in fact finally refunded our tickets. We will book again with them when we can, but I cannot imagine at my advanced age travel will be possible before a vaccine is developed for C19 if it ever is. We did not want vouchers that needed to be used before year's end. They refunded the ticket for our granddaughter quickly as she was flying unaccompanied on the return and those tickets are more easily refunded as they certainly don't want to consider shipping a kid on flights with many connections and the direct flights from here were all cancelled.

I am no lover of nor apologist for giant corporations; however, this issue is a big mess, only partly the fault of the airlines. It really is an unprecedented situation, and seems to be changing daily. Here is what worked for me. We had tickets to fly to Milan on 4/12 😢. Following the advice given here by several posters, I was going to wait ‘til 3 days before or ‘til the airline cancelled any part of the trip. The latter came first, about a week ago, via an email notice from KLM. I immediately got on the phone with Delta, through whom I had booked the trip, where I was given a choice of waiting on hold or a call back with an estimated time of 25 minutes. The call came just about exactly as predicted. The agent looked up the confirmation #, and, with no further ado, processed the refund request. The credit has already appeared on my Amex account.

Now, where I believe the airlines are culpable is the offering of vouchers with short validity lives. By now it seems clear that rebooking before 6 months to a year from now is iffy, at best. I think people who accepted vouchers, thinking they had no alternative, should try again. It is also clear by now that there are going to be thousands of calls coming in daily; and a decent customer service policy would be to offer the call-back option.

Finally, I have to agree that all this mess supports the notion that dealing directly with the airlines, rather than 3rd parties, is the best policy. I shudder to think what some travelers, who booked through the less reputable consolidators, must go through to get any compensation..

American Airlines does offer the callback option which is how we finally got through. I waited until a few days before the flight to call (I had submitted the on line requests for refunds much earlier)

I had a remarkably easy time with Delta refunding my money on a flight I had scheduled for April 3rd. I did wait until about 72 hours before the flight was to leave and did book directly with the airline and the flight had been cancelled. In reading the Delta policies on line, I really didn't think I would get a refund . I thought I would have to just accept a credit for a later flight. I have learned that those third party booking sites are a hassle.

For the first time ever I booked an airfare on the site justfly. Normally I like to book through the airline because I’m in to the points but this time the fair was so cheap that I decided to go for it. There was a flight from Atlanta to Paris for under $600. Well fast forward to the modern times and I could not get a hold of just fly they would put me for a labyrinth of phone prompts Only to hang up on me. When I called British Airways they told me that it was up to the travel agent. So basically I was getting the runaround. I decided to contact the Better Business Bureau and within a week just fly was now finally trying to contact me. They were very helpful at this point and told me that the refund would be in my account within three weeks. So maybe this is a step that some people can consider.

Just want to let everyone know that we received our refund from American Airlines. It took one week.

Good news- congrats!!

We had 2 multi-city, non-refundable tickets booked through Delta - Seattle to Paris on 5/1, return Amsterdam to Seattle on 5/24. I was checking the Delta app daily to see when the flight was cancelled so that I could request a refund. On Tuesday, 4/14, 18 days from our scheduled departure, I received a flight cancellation email telling me that they would give me a 24 month eCredit unless I contacted them and requested a refund. I immediately called Delta and after an hour on hold was quickly assisted with a full refund request. The agent said that I should see the refund on our credit card in 21 days. I received a confirmation receipt upon hanging up.

Including the airfare, we have had great success getting refunds on everything we pre-booked for our now-cancelled 3 week trip including “non-refundable” hotel deposits, SNCF train tickets, and even concert tickets.

Thanks, that is just the info I was looking for. My flight is with Delta scheduled to leave May 17. I will wait a few more days to see if I get an email from them before I call.

Glad that was helpful. The Delta agents I spoke to on Tuesday were very professional. The entire transaction took two minutes, they just needed my confirmation number and travelers names and they efficiently processed my request. Hang in there. : )