These are of course unprecedented times, with millions of individuals being affected and unable to travel because of their flight cancellation.
Responsibility for refunding flight cancellations lies with the airline, but Travel Trolley is committed to helping you at this difficult time. We have therefore set out below an overview of the options which are being offered by the airlines to their customers, which we can help secure for you.
Airlines are taking two different approaches to COVID-19 related flight cancellations. Some airlines are choosing to issue customers with a credit note only, without the option for a refund. Others are offering customers a refund.
Please understand that we have no control over these flight cancellation policies. They are set by the airlines and, as a booking agent, we have no control over them. Nevertheless, we are working tirelessly in liaising between our customers and the airlines in relation to these options. If you would like us to do so for you, here are the options available to you:
- Credit notes: Some airlines are currently only offering credit notes for the full amount of cancelled flights. In these cases, we will endeavour to provide you with a credit note within a week of cancellation.
- Refunds: Some airlines are offering a refund. In this case, we will make the refund request with the airline and pass on the refund to you within 14 days of us having received it from the airline. Please note that we have no control over how long the airline takes to process your refund request.
Some airlines have now introduced a manual process for requesting refunds instead of their usual process. This requires us to complete an application form to request your refund, which significantly adds to the time and cost of requesting a refund on your behalf. We have increased the size of our refunds team to complete these application forms, which we typically lodge with the airline within 7 days of your refund request. However, some airlines are anticipating taking 4 to 6 months to process your refund following receipt of the application form. This timeframe is not something which we control.
As we incur a cost in processing refunds on behalf of our customers, clause 21 of our terms and conditions allow us to charge a per ticket administration fee to cover these costs. However, we recognise these are extremely difficult times for our customers, and we at Travel Trolley would like to support you as best we can. We have therefore taken the decision to remove the administration fee, in order to help our customers through these turbulent times and to provide them with as much support as we can offer.
Please refer to Question (3) in FAQ Section for more details
We'll work to ensure you receive your refund or credit note as quickly as possible. To do so, we've increased our staffing levels to ensure we're delivering the best and quickest customer service to you and our call centre currently has an average call waiting time of no more than two minutes.
We appreciate this is a difficult time and that the trip you were no doubt excited to take has now been cancelled. While we are dealing with a large number of requests, we'll do our best to come back to you as soon as possible and thank you for your understanding.
This statement has been issued to explain how airlines are currently dealing with flight cancellations and how we may help you to secure those options. This statement does not change our terms and conditions, which remain the same as at the time of your booking.