Some firms see profits in pandemic
Some take advantage of uncertainty in outbreak
It turns out you can profit from a pandemic. At least that’s what travelers are discovering after dealing with some airlines, cruise lines and hotels during the pandemic. They claim travel companies are taking advantage of them during the COVID-19 outbreak. Sometimes they’re right.
No, it’s not all travel companies. Most of them have done the right thing, issuing refunds and delivering terrific customer service as the world locked down. But a few pandemic predators have found ways to enrich themselves by exploiting gray areas in their contracts or creating rigid refund rules.
Some profit from confusion
Confusion can be profitable. When the outbreak happened, many airlines took advantage of the fact that their customers didn’t fully understand the refund rules. They claimed you could only get a ticket credit, even though federal law requires a full refund if an airline cancels a flight.
Agness Walewinder had tickets on Frontier Airlines from Seattle to Austin during the pandemic. The airline sent her multiple messages urging her to cancel her flight and accept vouchers. What Frontier didn’t say was that if she waited until the airline canceled her flight, she’d get her money back. Walewinder, a travel blogger, accepted the credits – and afterward, Frontier canceled her flight.
“I feel as if Frontier has taken advantage of me,” she says.
Frontier did not respond to a request for comment about its refund notifications.
Gray areas can be exploited
Some companies have tried to exploit ambiguities in their contracts, according to customers. Agreements between travel companies and customers rarely address a pandemic. So when the COVID-19 outbreak happened, some companies interpreted their agreements in a way that favored them.
At least that’s the opinion of Susan Fox, who paid more than $14,000 to celebrate her fifth anniversary at Sandals Grenada. When the pandemic hit, Sandals refused to refund a penny. Instead, it told her she could rebook her vacation within a year. “Sandals forced us to
make them an interest-free loan, which is absolutely unconscionable during these hard economic times,” she says.
Sandals spokeswoman Maggie Rivera says its agreement with guests allows it to keep their money and that most customers were happy with the offer to reschedule. She notes that Sandals agreed to refund optional extras Fox purchased, such as a private moonlit dinner and a couples massage.
“We are committed to guest satisfaction and would be happy to continue to work directly with this customer and be as flexible as possible in order to accommodate
future travel plans,” Rivera says.
Tough-luck policies
Travelers are surprised when companies say one thing but do another. That was Alexandra Sutton’s experience when Norwegian Cruise Line canceled her Caribbean cruise.
It offered her a refund or credit. She requested a refund through her travel agent and got confirmation she would receive one. But NCL offered her only a credit, claiming that her agency hadn’t notified it in time. Sutton, a teacher from
Towaco, New Jersey, tried disputing the charges on her card without success.
“No one will take responsibility for this mistake,” she says, “And no one will help us resolve it.”
NCL says it asked customers such as Sutton to make a choice between a cruise credit and refund by March 23 and gave them more than a month to do so. “Our records indicate that neither the guests nor the travel agency completed the form,” a NCL spokesman says. “They automatically received the 125% refund of the fare paid in the form of a future cruise credit, which can be applied toward any future cruise through Dec. 31, 2022.”
Norwegian is hardly the only company to create rigid rules that benefit itself rather than the customer. If you don’t believe me, try converting your voucher to a cash refund. Didn’t get very far, did you?
No one is actually profiting from this nonsense, at least in the traditional sense. Practically every travel company will report a loss for the first half of this year, and maybe longer.
It’s how you fail that matters. Do you take your customers’ money with you, believing it’s only fair that they should suffer, too? Or do you do the right thing and offer a prompt and full refund?
I’m certain that the travel companies with customer-friendly refund policies will see a quicker recovery. Travelers will remember who treated them well – and who tried to pocket their money.