Cancelled flight Reimbursement from Transavia: running into banking issues

Is part of this a refund of what you paid for the flight? They should be able to put that back on the credit card you used for the purchase. The EC261 compensation does indeed have to be paid in cash.

When British Airways owed us around €600 for an overseas flight that left 4 hours late, I told them my little credit union does not accept international wire transfers, so they mailed me a check! In US dollars, not GBP.

You might ask if they will do that. If not (which is what I expect), tell them they need to provide the details of the “failed” attempt so you can try to figure out what went wrong.

For a next attempt, you can open an account and use Wise—-someone here recently posted their excellent experience with using that service. I will try and find the thread.

Keep all the emails detailing the amount they owe, what they say about it, and your attempts to find a solution, in case you need to go to Elliot Advocacy for help.

https://elliottadvocacy.org/

Here are two recent threads about using Wise:

https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/transportation/autoeurope-eu-and-getting-insurance-reimbursement

https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/budget-tips/international-wire-transfer-bf7846c5-c734-496d-8ece-51509ef04007

You might look into Wise.com (aka transferwise) to see if setting up an account there would allow you to receive money from Transavia. I have no personal experience with Wise, but it is often a solution for people that need to wire money between countries.

You might see if Transavia ia able to issue a bank draft (check) and mail it to you. It would be ideal if they could issue a bank draft drawn on a U.S. bank in dollars. BA did this when they paid compensation to me, but I would not expect Transavia to offer this since they don’t fly to the U.S. If they were able to issue a draft drawn on a European account in Euros, you would need to know if your bank could handle that check. For example, my bank will accept a foreign draft, but the cost is high and it takes several weeks to process.

Just a suggestion, have you been on the website to look directly at the cancelled flight in your account and try to get reimbursement on initial credit card used? If that doesn't work, you could call your credit card company to report the fraud, which is what this is, and then tell the airline you've reported them. I'm not jumping through hoops for an airline who's not playing by the rules. (I seem to recall credit card companies use 'dispute a charge', but I would still consider calling into the fraud department to upp the pressure.)

This appears to be compensation for a canceled flight under EU261, not reimbursement for what they paid for the tickets. EU261 compensation must be paid by the airline in cash; it cannot “go back” on the credit card used to buy the tickets. it is a totally separate matter under the EU regulations.

I recently had an issue with Iberia owing me 1800 euros for a cancelled flight for 3 of us. The form they sent us for reimbursement could not be filled out because that is the one they send to Europeans not Americans. I couldn't get anywhere with a real person on the phone at Iberia customer service nor using their website. One of the people that posted on this Forum in response to my inquiry post also directed me to the Elliott advocacy group. There, under their Iberia section, was the email for the head of customer service. He forwarded my email to a customer service rep and within a day I had a response. Iberia has an office in Miami and will supposedly be wiring me the funds from there. Now we will see if they actually transfer the funds.

Thank you so much for all of your help! Yes, I was able to get the refund for the cancelled flight on my credit card. That was the easy part. The challenge now is the EU rule (which as Lola pointed out, cannot be put back on a credit card, it must be cash/deposit to bank account) and the incidentals (taxi, dinner) and the fare difference for the last minute Easyjet flight.

I appreciate the suggestions for Wise and will look into that. My husband plans to call our bank tomorrow to see if he can get more information. We requested information about the supposed deposit that was supposedly rejected. My hunch is that it was never actually sent to the bank (or the bank would be aware of this and would have a reason for the rejection which they claim they don't have). It is recorded as rejected because it never happened. I'm not saying that this was intentional. My hope is that it is an honest mistake but I am not getting information from Transavia customer service to help me diagnose the issue on my end so that I can solve it and get my money. Which I would very much like to do. Of course. :)