Finally! Here’s why I’m happy my airline cancelled my flight

The Flight Detective
a group of airplanes on a runway at sunset

It seems a long time ago that I wrote about pondering upgrade offers on flights I had booked. Everything has gone pear shaped and at last my airline cancelled my flight. This makes me happy!

For a while now, free changes have been available for my bookings. One reason I haven’t done that is because our group hasn’t decided on when we’ll reschedule the trip. The other reason? Well, that’s financial.

Happy My Airline Cancelled My Flight

Originally I was quite pleased that airlines were allowing free changes on bookings. However as the situation deteriorated, making forward travel plans became that much more difficult.

Certain airlines are allowing changes only and if you cancel the booking, you will be refunded according to your original booking rules. That means I’m totally out of luck as I purchased the cheapest non-refundable tickets possible.

However, when the airline cancels your flight, they are obliged to refund you. This results in a waiting game. I know that certain flights are cancelled thanks to the updates on the airline web site, however my booking still exists in live form, as the staff are still working through the backlog. In effect, it’s still live.

Therefore, the news that the airline cancelled my flight is great. It means I can finally apply for a refund and get all my money back. It’s not like I’m going to be holding on to it for that long, because as soon as travel starts again, I’ll be booking again anyway.

Overall Thoughts

Hopefully not too many people went and cancelled their non-refundable tickets before the airline did. In that case, those people would have received only the taxes and charges back as opposed to the entire amount.

There is also little recourse if you did do that, because fare rules are there for a reason. I’m still waiting on some flights to cancel, but I’m glad it has started, as the travel was due to take place at the beginning of April. I tell you what, with 26 days annual leave still to take this year, I’m looking forward to a holiday!

What has been your experience with cancellations and refunds due to the current situation? Is everything going well or have you run into problems? Thank you for reading and if you have any comments or questions, please leave them below.

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Featured image by Ramon Kagie on Unsplash.
Airport image by Tobias Zils on Unsplash.

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Family Flys Free

Except that even then, some airlines aren’t refunding you. The two biggest culprits seem to be United and British Airways.

Good to know! I need to change a flight with them, booked through Chase Travel. No email response ever came from my request, and now they aren’t answering calls. Departs tomorrow. A bit stressed.

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