SAS flight refund?

I had 2 flights booked on SAS:

mid-May flight: 13 days for full refund
I received notice on April 3 that my mid-May flight (1-way, London to Riga) was cancelled; on April 16th, I received the full refund to my credit card, including seat assignment.

September 8 flight: refund received in 8 weeks (estimate from SAS was 2-3 months)
My flight (round trip, San Francisco to Poland) was effectively cancelled (SAS notified me of a "date change") on August 17; the agent has told me the refund will take 2-3 months.

Details of both flights/refunds in this thread.

Update 27 Oct 2020: I received my refund for my September SAS flight on my credit card 4 days ago, 8 weeks after my scheduled departure. I saw an article that SAS had finalized a new financing deal last Friday with Sweden and Denmark. Perhaps that will help the refund queue.

Thank you for sharing your experience! I figured that it might take awhile, but I’m starting to worry. We will see...

The SAS Board of Directors has approved a recapitalization plan, which "has the support of the Company’s two largest shareholders, the governments of Sweden and Denmark."

Hopefully, that's good news for (eventual) refunds. Since your refund has been pending for 3 months, you may wish to call SAS and ask for an update. At some point, I've wondered whether a complaint with the US Department of Transportation (assuming your flight originated in the US) might shake a refund loose. SAS hadn't had a lot of complaints (when I checked mid-August) so perhaps there wouldn't be a massive delay to process one.

Sorry to hear that. I have no experience as I've not had to request any refunds, but keep reminding them. There are probably a couple of consumer organisations you could contact for help, but which one depends on if they were intraeuropean flights, domestic flights or transatlantic flights?

And in case you haven't seen them, here are the EU rules regarding passenger rights: https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/travel/passenger-rights/air/index_en.htm

Thank you for your suggestions. I’m debating whether I should contact my credit card company to try to do a chargeback. I normally view that as a last resort, and I didn’t do it with any of the other tickets we had for this trip. I waited, and eventually, every airline refunded, except for SAS. This morning, I received yet another email trying to convince me to take a voucher. Very frustrating. I’m also going to check out where I might be able to file a formal complaint.

There are consumer organisations that can help you, but like I mentioned, which one is the best depends a lot on what kind of flight is was.

It was Norway to Croatia, but with a connecting flight in Denmark. I don't know how the stopover affects the analysis...

Thank you!

As I see it you have three choices.

1. Wait for the money. They will arrive sooner or later, SAS is not in
   risk of bankrupcy. It is too important for the Scandinavian
   countries, especially Norway and Sweden where they have a lot of
   domestic routes. And they probably have a mountain of refunds to
   process (like more or less all airlines).

2. Accept their offer of a voucher.

3. Take the official route. Send them a complaint using this form:
   https://ec.europa.eu/transport/sites/transport/files/themes/passengers/air/doc/complain_form/eu_complaint_form_en.pdf
   If they don't respond within 6 weeks or if you are not happy with
   the response, you can contact Transportklagenemnda for more help,
   www.transportklagenemnda.no

sssarlington, I got my SAS refund a few days ago. Details in my earlier note, upthread. (This note is meant to trigger your email notification.)

Very happy for you to have received your refund!

I just checked, and my refund is still "in progress" on their site. I'm a little concerned, as our flights were canceled in June (flight was originally scheduled for July 4). I'm wondering why they've skipped over us to process refunds for flights that occurred months after ours.

Yes, that would concern me too. Although I have seen situations with another airline having multiple refund queues - separated by geographical region, in that case - each of which was processed according to its own schedule and staffing.

Just wanted to update -- I telephoned last week, and the representative said that my refund was "just processed that morning." It took a couple of days for the money to get refunded to my credit card. I found it a little suspicious that the refund just happened to post on the same day that I called... Still, I'm quite relieved to have finally received the refund after 18 weeks.

That's great news. So glad you finally got your refund!

My SAS refund hit my credit card just in time to offset the costs of a road trip I took in October, so that trip felt like it was free!

I'm happy to hear that you recieved your refund in the end!