‘Nothing stopping airline refunds’
There’s nothing stopping Virgin Australia from paying refunds to customers who have credit held with the airline, despite the carrier saying it is against the law, Consumer NZ says.
Wellington man Phil Gorman recently expressed his frustration at not being able to use his $5800 credit with Virgin Australia because it is not flying to New Zealand.
The only New Zealand service the airline has planned is to Queenstown, starting in November.
Gorman raised the issue in an email exchange with Virgin Australia chief executive Jayne Hrdlicka, who told him she could not refund him because it was against the law for her to treat him different from other customers.
Nelson woman Kerrie Thompson said she was in a similar situation as Gorman, with a Virgin Australia flight credit she could not use.
Thompson said in 2019 she and a group of family and friends used Flight Centre to buy return flights for 11 people flying Virgin Australia from Auckland to the Cook Islands in 2020 for $4389.
The flights were cancelled because of the pandemic, and Virgin Australia subsequently entered voluntary administration.
The company was sold to Bain Capital and creditors voted to receive credits, as opposed to receiving refunds, of 8 cents to 10c in the dollar.
Virgin Australia says credits expire at the end of January and can be used for booking travel up to December 27 next year.
Consumer NZ chief executive Jon Duffy said Hrdlicka’s claim that it was against the law for Virgin Australia to issue refunds on a case by case basis was ‘‘cynical’’.
As far as he was aware there was nothing stopping Virgin Australia making one-off refunds.
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The flip side was that if it made an exception for one person then there would probably be ‘‘many thousands of people’’ in a similar position.
Consumer NZ had received a handful of complaints about Virgin Australia, and it’s credit policy, he said.
Extending the expiry date of the credits would be a practical solution for New Zealanders, he said.