Nappster

Hey,

I'm a Brit Expat based in LA. I was booked to fly back to LHR this afternoon but with all the delays and bad weather, it's looking increasingly like I'm spending the holidays here instead!

Does anyone know anything about airfare refunds?

Virgin Atlantic cancelled my flight LAX-LHR this afternoon so I'm assuming this entitles me to a refund for this (the return) portion of my ticket?

Although I've heard that airlines only give you their chunk of the fare back and make it very painful with red tape for you to reclaim the taxes back, so they can keep them..

Does anyone have any experience with this?!

Thanks.

traceym

If all you wants a refund dont even bother trying to call Virgin yet, my sons flight was cancelled on Saturday morning and he's spent all weekend on the phone to them, on hold in a queue. Managed to get a flight out on Christmas Eve, but to get out any earlier changing from SFO to LAX they wanted to charge us $3000!

penguinsix

As this is weather-related they can offer you another ticket on another day, but if you don't take it you are not entitled to a refund automatically as I think the law has a 'weather' clause. Whether the airlines give you one or not depends on their current customer affairs sentiment (i.e. since this is a big storm they might do some refunds for PR reasons and for logistics reasons--to free up more seats on the remaining planes).

Many airlines have opted to issue refunds in this circumstance:

http://airtravel.about.com/b/2010/12...e-policies.htm
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/tr...ur-rights.html

penguinsix

Refunds!

http://www.virgin-atlantic.com:80/en...ion.jsp?ckck=1

tonrob

I flights to Germany got canceled last Xmas due to snow at Philly. Lufthansa offered to rebook or provide a full refund. We had to chase them for weeks for the refund - they said the department that dealt with refunds was busy/behind.

GeoffM

FWIW two flights from LAX to LHR landed about half an hour ago (yes, at LHR!), one UAL; the other BAW. Heathrow is still chaotic as only one runway is open and most of the parking stands are either iced up and unusable, or occupied by aircraft going nowhere, or both. Flights that do make it are likely to be full with a long wait list, quite possibly with priority for elderly, those with young children, or otherwise in more need of a flight than the average person.

Ray

Snow travel chaos: Your rights


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-12038224

Bob

If you had travel insurance, it'd be easy to get your money back...but hindsight...