DO NOT BOOK WITH AEGEAN!

[ppd652]

Aegean Airlines canceled our flight from Paris to Athens and REFUSED to refund our money!  They offered an air credit which is entirely useless, since our cruise was also canceled.  We have been unable to talk to a representative because when we call their customer service, we are put on hold for ten minutes and then disconnected.  We later found out that Greek citizens are receiving refunds because Aegean wants money from the Greek government.  Aegean has screwed non Greeks.  I am never going to Greece nor will I ever book with Aegean.

 

[iancal]

Aegean may be refunding Greeks (and other EU folks) because of EU regulations.  Perhaps the refund vs credit issue depends on where the ticket was purchased.

Edited May 20, 2020 by iancal

[klfrodo]

2 hours ago, ppd652 said:

Aegean Airlines canceled our flight from Paris to Athens and REFUSED to refund our money!  They offered an air credit which is entirely useless, since our cruise was also canceled.  We have been unable to talk to a representative because when we call their customer service, we are put on hold for ten minutes and then disconnected.  We later found out that Greek citizens are receiving refunds because Aegean wants money from the Greek government.  Aegean has screwed non Greeks.  I am never going to Greece nor will I ever book with Aegean.

 

I'm confused.

Are you making a statement? Or are you asking if anyone here has any ideas that could possibly help you achieve the results you desire? 

[CruiserBruce]

If this is going to stop you from ever visiting Greece, respectfully, I think you are shooting yourself in both feet. Greece is a wonderful country with fantastic food,  history, scenery and people, and so many other aspects.

[FlyerTalker]

You managed to leave out an "OMG" or two in your headline.

[bennybear]

As Aegean is an EU airline, you should be covered by EU rules no matter where you purchased.  But unfortunately many airlines are trying to avoid refunding due to The pandemic.  

[Fairgarth]

We had the opposite experience.  We were booked on Aegean for ATH - FRA on 14th April.  Our cruise was cancelled so we cancelled our flight.  It was not cancelled by Aegean.  We called their 24 hour line from Canada.  We got our refunds fairly quickly, minus a 75 euro charge each.  Lufthansa, OTOH, is a fish of a different kettle.  They cancelled their flight into Dubai and indeed, Dubai closed their airport to all flights the day before we were due to arrive.  We called Lufthansa and requested a refund but are still waiting.  We never got the service we paid for, if we never get a refund is that theft?

[klfrodo]

1 hour ago, Fairgarth said:

 We called Lufthansa and requested a refund but are still waiting.  We never got the service we paid for, if we never get a refund is that theft?

I'm not sure of Canadian laws.

If you were in the US, you could just file a "charge back" on your credit card with the credit card company you bought the tickets with. The credit card company would immediately credit your account and then investigate with (in your case) Lufthansa.

[bennybear]

@FairgarthYou are covered by EU law for Lufthansa,  but there is a Canadian air passenger rights group on Facebook that will help you.  Chargebacks  work well for many. 

[FlyerTalker]

2 hours ago, klfrodo said:

The credit card company would immediately credit your account and then investigate with (in your case) Lufthansa.

 

Hold on.  I believe you have it backwards.

 

If the payment to Aegean had already cleared and been paid for, the CC company would take your information and do its investigation into your claim.  I extremely doubt that they would "immediately" credit to your account before any investigation.

 

If the payment to Aegean had not been paid by the consumer, then the CC would likely put that charge into the "disputed" category -- meaning that it would not be part of the current cycle, but it too would not immediately credited.

[Bramcruiser]

To the OP, most carriers are defaulting to offering a voucher first. I tried to get refunds out of TAP and KLM this round and ran into the same problems. I just gave in too easily because it wasn't worth my while to spend hours - even days - on the phone going thru many chains of commands to get my money back. That was time in my life I was never going to get back. I figure I'll just head over next year even if for a land vacation - as long as the borders reopen.

 

As for punishing all of Greece, that is overly dramatic. We don't hand out Academy Awards on these boards. Greece is a beautiful country with many worthwhile places to see. I also had one of my best flights ever on Aegean Airlines.

 

All I can say is good luck on your battle to get your money back but don't single one airline for what every other airline is doing as well.

[FlyerTalker]

4 hours ago, Bramcruiser said:

All I can say is good luck on your battle to get your money back but don't single one airline for what every other airline is doing as well.

 

 

"But I don't care about those others....it's MY MONEY that matters"

[Fairgarth]

21 hours ago, klfrodo said:

I'm not sure of Canadian laws.

If you were in the US, you could just file a "charge back" on your credit card with the credit card company you bought the tickets with. The credit card company would immediately credit your account and then investigate with (in your case) Lufthansa.

 

Thanks for the suggestion.  We contacted our credit card issuer.  They tried to fob us off by suggesting we file a claim with our credit card insurance.  I can't see that this is an insurable event but it would relieve them of doing any uncompensated work.  In the end, they said they would 'raise a dispute' with Lufthansa.  They did not say they would charge back, at least, not yet.  They advised that it could take up to 90 days to resolve.

[Fairgarth]

Further to....interesting piece in CBC News website today.  It seems to be common that Canadian banks are stonewalling on chargebacks.  If pushed, they will finally agree to 'open a dispute' with the airline.  So you have to wait and see if and when you actually get your refund but they are not processing chargebacks.

 

So let me speculate here.  In normal times, a credit card company might pay an airline for 100 ticket sales a day and have one refund.  So they deduct the value of the refund and pay the airline the balance.  So what happens if the credit card has a daily total of 100 refunds and one new ticket sale?  They haven't a snowflake's chance in hell of getting money back from an airline so they try to choke off their own customer.  Yes?

[klfrodo]

17 hours ago, Fairgarth said:

 

 

 They haven't a snowflake's chance in hell of getting money back from an airline so they try to choke off their own customer.  Yes?

personally? I think you're reading too much "conspiracy theory/deep state" into it but hey, that's me.

[waterbug123]

On 5/21/2020 at 7:48 PM, FlyerTalker said:

 

Hold on.  I believe you have it backwards.

 

If the payment to Aegean had already cleared and been paid for, the CC company would take your information and do its investigation into your claim.  I extremely doubt that they would "immediately" credit to your account before any investigation.

 

If the payment to Aegean had not been paid by the consumer, then the CC would likely put that charge into the "disputed" category -- meaning that it would not be part of the current cycle, but it too would not immediately credited.

 

Actually it might work as previously stated.  I disputed a credit card charge last fall.  I was given an immediate credit on my account while they investigated.  In the end, it if turned out to be fraud, the credit would be permanent; if not, I would be charged again to cancel out the credit.  Same process several times with a couple of smaller charges for subscriptions that I canceled and continued to get charged for.  I got immediate credit, merchant never responded so the credit became permanent.

[iancal]

On the one time that we disputed a charge on our credit card the charge was removed, our account immediately credited.  

 

The charge was actually moved to a suspense account so that we would not incur any interest charges on it.   About 10 days later we got a note from the issuer stating that the dispute had been resolved and the charge removed.  

 

 

[fbgd]

On 5/21/2020 at 7:48 PM, FlyerTalker said:

 

Hold on.  I believe you have it backwards.

 

If the payment to Aegean had already cleared and been paid for, the CC company would take your information and do its investigation into your claim.  I extremely doubt that they would "immediately" credit to your account before any investigation.

 

Amex have always issued me with immediate credits for "investigated" chargebacks.

 

I had some UK domestic flights on Easyjet for travel the other month and the flights were cancelled. I couldn't get hold of Easyjet within the three days of travel so called Amex. The agent looked it up and noted the flight was cancelled and issued a credit right away. 

 

I've found Amex to be amazingly consumer friendly on things such as this. In the early 2000s I had to make a call from a payphone and was charged £17 for what amounted to a 40 sec call to a landline. I called Amex to confirm the charge was correct and the rep asked me how much I think I should pay so I said about £1 and they gave me a £16 credit :D