Waiting for an airline ticket refund? Better be patient!

Airlines are currently coping with a tsunami of refund requests, thanks to an unprecedented array of cancelled flights. Those people waiting for an airline ticket refund should be prepared to wait.

Usually your refund will come through fairly swiftly, if not immediately. However, in case you hadn’t noticed, these are not normal times, so the waiting game is real.

Airline Ticket Refund Delays

Finnair had an apology on their web site for ages, as refunds were taking up to four weeks. Today they have sent an e-mail and updated their web site to say refunds are taking an average of eight weeks.

In the e-mail I received, it said I could switch my refund from cash to a voucher, with the incentive of 10% more value plus a four week turn around. While I have until 5 April to decide, I won’t be taking them up on the offer.

However, what is important to point out is that people are being asked not to send duplicate requests. I am also pretty sure people are ringing the airlines asking where their money is.

Everyone will get processed much faster if people just be patient. Now that Finnair have notified everyone that it will be eight weeks, it should stop the follow up queries. You should apply that to any airline, be patient, wait and your money will eventually come through.

Overall Thoughts

Naturally everyone wants their airline ticket refund to happen immediately. In my case, it means I have an inbox full of bookings I can’t delete until the money eventually wings its way back to me. I am lucky I am not in a situation where I desperately need the cash, though I am aware others are.

Patience is a virtue as the old saying goes. All I keep thinking of are the poor people in the refunds department, looking at piles of work coming in. There is no way they were previously resourced to cope with this, so there really is no-one to blame.

Are you waiting on an airline ticket refund and how long have you been waiting? Perhaps you received your money back very quickly or maybe you took the voucher? I’d be interested to hear your experiences. Thank you for reading and if you have any comments or questions, please leave them below.

To never miss a post, follow me on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
All my flight and lounge reviews are indexed here so check them out!

Featured image by Tungsten via Wikimedia Commons.