Getting the Customer Service Run Around

Princess Four was scheduled to go do a service mission to Kiribati from May until August of this year. 

Due to Covid, the trip was postponed until September and then it was canceled when Covid hit the ground in the U.S. She was excited to go and had already purchased her tickets. When everything was canceled, she talked to some of the others that were going to go who had gotten refunds. She waited to call to request a refund because she was hoping she would be able to go on a postponed trip. 

Princess four contacted the company twice and the travel agent who purchase the first half of the ticket for months now, and she hasn't gotten any refund. 

I called Fiji airlines on the "ticket purchase" number to avoid the international fees. I spoke with a woman for about 30 minutes and she told me there could be NO refund because she bought a "cheap ticket." I told her others in the group had gotten refunds and that my daughter wouldn't be traveling anytime soon so didn't want a flight credit. I told her we wanted a refund. It took me a few minutes to get the next information out of her, but because the first half of the ticket on the airlines out of the U.S. was canceled, they were required to give her a refund on the second leg of the flight. 

She then told me you needed to go into the fiji airlines.com and click on the "contact us tab" and go down to the "Feedback" link. Once to that link it tells you to give a reason for your request. You click on "get a refund" and another pop up comes up giving you a link for refunds. If you go to that page it asks you to rebook your flights for a future travel date. 

I went back to the "feedback" and clicked on "full refund" and then didn't follow the new link. I was told to put "I am requesting a full refund as my connecting international flight on a separate ticket from the US was canceled" at the top of the page, and then to include the flight ticket numbers and the confirmation numbers for all the flights in the comment. I also included the dates of both going and returning flights just in case. I included the credit card number that I would need the refund to go to in that comment page. I then submitted that request.

I next contacted the travel agent that booked the first leg of flights by phone, and they told me that her request for a refund was still going through and had been submitted. He said (his name was Robin - but I don't really think that was his name as I asked for it at the end of the call as he never gave it at the beginning) he would send notice that we had called again for the refund. 

I made a video of the run around that this airline makes you go through to get a refund on tickets. They are 90 days out for refunds. 

I almost think that they maybe are struggling financially and are pushing their debts out for months. I know Covid caused some havoc on companies and noticed that Virgin Atlantic claimed bankruptcy today, so perhaps that is the situation. The last photo on this post is one that they sent when they emailed her that her flight was canceled. There was NO directions how to get a ticket refund and they make it very difficult to get. I wish she had tried earlier as the others did get a refund, it may be that she will never get one at this point. 

I hope that this will be resolved soon and we can move on spending our time doing more enjoyable things.