How to get refund for cancelled flight?

September 21, 2017 2:46 PM

Air Berlin cancelled half of the flights on my trip due to liquidation/pilot strike. Customer support is saying I only get a refund for the specific flights cancelled. How do I undo the whole thing and get my money back?

I purchased a multi-city trip with connections from Air Berlin:
Tel Aviv - Berlin - New York
Miami - Berlin - Tel Aviv

The flights from Berlin to NY and from Miami to Berlin have been cancelled, so I'm basically stuck with a round trip from TLV to Berlin, which is useless for me. How can I cancel the whole trip and get a refund? Do I have legal standing here? Is there any way for me to get my money now, before spending money on new, alternative tickets? Or will that be a long, drawn-out battle?

I know refund.me is a thing, but I've heard doubts about their honesty and am honestly looking for a way to solve this fast.

Any tips/previous experience would help! Thanks

posted by alon to Travel & Transportation (4 answers total)

Did they offer to rebook you on different flights to keep the same ticket or have they cancelled the whole route? They should offer to endorse you on another airline (though it may not be a nice route!) to get you to where you can use the good remaining ticket.

Normally I would suggest to you to walk through the customer service process in a couple of ways, however I know Air Berlin is in bankruptcy right now, so this may make your life more difficult. I'm not sure if you'd be different in this case than any other unsecured creditor even if they decide you are entitled to the refund. If I were you, I would first try my credit card company and see if I could get my money back that way.

If the credit card company doesn't work, I would take my physical ticket and go to the airport and insist on receiving a refund. There is a good FAQ here for your situation. Sorry and good luck.
posted by frumiousb at 3:06 PM on September 21, 2017

Is this all booked as one ticket/itinerary? If it is it seems you should be able to cancel the whole thing. If this is booked as separate tickets you are looking at completely separate transactions.
posted by koahiatamadl at 7:53 AM on September 22, 2017

Check the EU's rules on this - they may affect you positively: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_Compensation_Regulation_261/2004
posted by mdonley at 9:49 AM on September 29, 2017

Response by poster: Thanks for everyone's help!
Just in case anyone comes across this post searching for an answer, I ended up contacting my credit card company and doing a chargeback, which solved the issue efficiently and with little effort on my part.
posted by alon at 5:23 AM on January 25, 2018