Should I insist on a refund or take Ryanair's offer to move travel date free of charge?
- By
- Aparna Patel
- |
- 7 Aug, 2023
- |
My principle is to always get a refund. Money in your pocket is money in your pocket.
If you accept a voucher, you must check its terms and conditions very, very carefully. Unlike a refund, it can have an expiration date (and do you know, for certain, how long the crisis will last?), it can have restrictions, such as not being illegable for certain flights, or paid tickets taking precedent and all other kinds of shenanigans.
This is the main reason I always get a refund. Exception: If I already plan a trip that I can use the voucher for, it is cheaper for me to change it this way (cheaper than refunding and booking new) and there is very low probability my plans will change (or something else interfere). And even in that case I won’t accept a voucher, only an immediate rebooking.
A voucher is always to the advantage of the airline, not you. When a company freely offers you something, it is almost always their advantage they have in mind.
Refund.
Ryanair are artificially inflating the price of tickets for people who are currently rebooking, as opposed to just buying a brand new ticket.
- Is it possible to recharge an OV-chipkaart without a Dutch banking card?
- How can I travel to America from Australia with my dog in the cabin or else be with him in cargo?
With RyanAir, I would continue to insist on the refund. If it was done on a Visa debit or credit card, I’d ask the bank to reverse it. I suspect that will be faster than waiting for RyanAir. But give the bank the evidence that you’re supposed to get a refund. Otherwise, they’ll say it was a legitimate charge.
Your question, I assume, is: should you accept their offer for a
- free change of flight within the next 3 months or insist on a refund?
We cannot answer this for you.
Your question (that you must ask yourself) is:
- is this offer useful for me then: yes
- if not useful (no planed travel in the next 3 months) then: no
All airlines are having a great deal of problems at the moment and one major one is financial liquidity.
So on the one side it is understandable that they need cash to remain solvent. Thus the offer.
On the otherhand, this airline has not confirmed that if you don’t accept their offer that they will nevertheless refund what they owe you (as confirmed in the previous emails).
The airlines are desperately trying to shift liability from now (refund you) to the future (carry you on a flight some time after this crisis is over).
I wouldn’t fall for it, noone knows how long this crisis will last or whether the airlines that are around today will still be around when it is over.
Credit:stackoverflow.com‘
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