FAMILY IN A BATTLE FOR £1,000 FARE
AGRANDMOTHER and her family have fought for months to get a refund on a £1,000 transatlantic flight that was cancelled by Covid-19. Maureen Sims, 82, of Abergavenny, originally bought a £1,082.34 return flight in January 2020 so her granddaughter Rena could visit her brother Lee in North Carolina, USA. However, the ensuing coronavirus pandemic grounded the July journey, at which point her family contacted online booking agency BudgetAir.co.uk to ask about having their money back.
But, after initially being told to be patient while the firm dealt with the issue, Maureen’s daughter Alison Platt said they heard nothing, adding that their bank Nationwide – whose credit card was used for the booking – then submitted their claim to the wrong department.
As a result, by the time the bank’s error was discovered the travel firm had claimed nothing could be done as the 120-day limit on requesting a refund had expired.
“Mum thought it would be nice to pay for Rena, who’s 20, to fly to the States to see her elder brother, who lives out there,” said Alison, who runs a community food bank in the town.
“Obviously, when Covid hit, American Airlines started making cancellations and we were initially told to wait until after the flight date before attempting to get our money back.
“That seemed fine to us because, at that point in the pandemic, no one really knew how long it would last or how wide-reaching it would be. ”
Nevertheless, despite American Airlines subsequently refunding BudgetAir the cost for the cancelled flights, the money did not make its way back to Maureen.
“We repeatedly tried contacting BudgetAir but got nowhere, so we turned to Nationwide, because the tickets had been booked using one of their credit cards,” said Alison, adding that the bank’s response was that their claim was being reviewed.
“This went on, back and forth, until New Year’s Eve when we finally got a phone call from Nationwide informing us we’d been referred to the wrong department the entire time. They apologised, saying we’d been misled and adding that we should’ve been speaking to the people in the ‘Visa disputes’ section instead.”
Then, to make matters worse, when the family finally succeeded in securing a refund via the bank, BudgetAir, whose parent company is the Netherlands-based Travix, disputed the claim because the 120-day limit on refund claims had run out.
“My mum was really upset and went, ‘Don’t worry love, I’ll just have to lose the money – it’s just one of those things,” said Alison. “But I was furious because it wasn’t our fault time had elapsed. So, no, I wasn’t about to give up just like that.”
So exasperated was Alison that she contacted MP for Monmouth, David Davies, who wrote to both Nationwide and BudgetAir on the family’s behalf and, almost a year later, the situation was finally sorted out.
“I can’t thank him enough for what he did. We even got given £75 compensation on top of the £1,082.34 we got back,” said Alison.
“However, my concern is that there might be lots of other customers out there who are in the same boat as us who won’t be so lucky.”
A Nationwide spokesperson said: “The pandemic has meant that many people’s travel plans were thrown into doubt.
“When seeking to get a refund, the first port of call should always be their travel provider who in most instances will offer a refund or allow them to rebook for a later date. Where this isn’t possible people can raise a Visa dispute claim in order to try and get their money back. As per the chargeback scheme rules, people have 120 days from the date the event was due to take place to make a claim.
“If a claim isn’t made within this timeframe it will unfortunately be declined. If someone has paid by credit card, then there is the option to make a Section 75 claim, but this often fails if the payment isn’t made directly to the supplier.
“The protection is also unlikely to apply when someone has used an intermediary to purchase flights with an airline on behalf of someone else.
“The pandemic led to significant volumes of calls to insurance providers. However, we apologise if we took longer than normal in getting back to the member.”
BudgetAir.co.uk have been contacted for comment.