Year on and no refund yet on Covid trip
It was meant to be a once in a lifetime family holiday, but it has become a year-long hassle with a travel agent, and time is running out.
An elderly couple in Wellington are still waiting on nearly $12,000 for refunded flights a year after the Covid-19 pandemic scuttled what was to be their last big overseas adventure.
Michele Haines and Vernon Phillips planned to celebrate their 70th birthdays with their children and grandchildren in Fiji last April. It was the most they had ever spent on a holiday.
While accommodation costs had been swiftly refunded, getting the $11,600 for flights booked through Flight Centre Palmerston North had been much harder.
Haines said chasing the refund had been a maddening mission. The travel agents had initially told them it would take a couple of months, then it became eight months.
Now all they were told was a nebulous ‘‘soon’’.
She said the sum would have come in handy to deal with unexpected costs, such as repairs to their home, and to assist their family’s additional expenses due to Covid-19.
‘‘Normally we wouldn’t spend that much money. But this was special . . . it was going to be a once in a lifetime family holiday . . . and it was going to be Vernon’s last chance for a big trip.’’
Her husband had health issues, including Parkinsons’ disease, that were making travel increasingly challenging.
The family still held out hope they could rebook the trip – but it depended on when the refund came through and when and how international travel reopened.
‘‘Having a lot of family along to look after us helps, but there’s a limited window where Vernon will still be able to go.’’
It was frustrating the only explanation they could get for the delays was that some airlines were still swamped with refund requests.
A Flight Centre spokeswoman said once a customer paid for flights or accommodation the money was sent directly to suppliers, so the travel agency couldn’t give a refund until the airline or hotel had paid it back.
‘‘We understand the wait, in some cases, is long, and it can be a frustrating experience for customers.’’
She said the travel agency applied to Fiji Airways for a full refund for Haines last July and have been in constant contact with the airline ever since to chase the matter up.
‘‘We hope to have this resolved as soon as possible. As a side note, [Flight Centre] have chosen not to charge a cancellation fee for bookings cancelled . . . as a result of Covid-19.’’
In March, the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment estimated about $690 million of Kiwis’ money had been locked up, most of it for overseas travel, due to pandemicrelated cancellations. Nearly half of it had been returned to the affected customers.