The ugly side of Airline Credits
The airline industry should be ashamed...
Having had several travel plans canceled on us at the beginning of COVID we were relieved to receive notices from the carriers and portals we had purchased through that refunds or credits would be issued. At least for a while...
Then the fleecing and shell games began...
All but one hotel of about a dozen refunded our money. The culprit was a one-night stay at a cheap place near the airport in Lisbon. Rental car refunds, Check. Airlines, check, well almost but not really. They offered full credit for future flights. Ok, that sounds reasonable at least initially. I say initially as when we went to rebook there were restrictions on what flights were allowed. These restrictions made travel at least twice as expensive as without. Booking on the carrier's own websites were restricted to only more expensive flights!
In other words, we received no actual credit. After some trying to book a reasonably priced flight we gave up and asked for a cash credit. This process took months as website pages were constantly down. Apps would constantly crash when credit was selected and there was no one to talk to. Oh, by the way, these all have use-by dates on these supposed credits. So here we are more than a year later getting close to the expiration of the credits and still nothing (update- after a twitter basing someone reached out and stayed with us until resolved. One down one to go).
In one situation where tickets were purchased through a discount site, that site passed us on to the carrier. Eventually, after hours and hours of attempted communication contact was made. The carrier eventually stated that a credit would be issued to the card that placed the order and would show up within 4-6 weeks. Six months later after many attempts to verify the credit (as it never showed up) they now say they credited the discount broker and only they can offer a refund. WTAF!
So while governments gave airlines millions of taxpayer dollars to keep them afloat during COVID they are still putting in more effort to screw the customers than take care of them. Again, shame on them!
This is still ongoing, but so far our experience has been completely unacceptable and I'll say it again.
The airline industry should be ashamed...
