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Re-Booking VS Refunding?

I'm concerned that some of these airlines will be declaring bankruptcy and some people will be out of luck.

I finally got the full refund for the seat selection fees from BA (requested on March 21 and arrived April 16).

I read that their pilots had to take a 50% pay cut and their CEO took NO pay cut. How's that for not leading by example! :D
 
The price for the EasyJet flight I have been tracking since January for a possible October trip to Italy has finally gone down for the first time, by about 13%. But since this trip is now almost 100% off the table for us, I'm watching just out of curiosity. My wife still thinks there's a chance...;)
 
For paid tickets on United, I'm hoping for more clarity on how a booking cancelled for Future Flight Credit can get it converted to the terms of the ETC. Someone on FlyerTalk says "You can use the flight credit to book a new flight at anytime. You can then cancel that new booking and get an ETC instead of the flight credit," but I'm not sure how much to count on that.
For people who still have United Future Flight Credit and are looking to get it converted to the more favorable Electronic Travel Certificate, I understand it may display differently in different cases, but now I can do it simply online:
  • Login to MileagePlus account.
  • My Trips
  • View All Trips; in our case, the paid domestic trip doesn't show even under "Canceled," so click the "Find a Trip" tab.
  • Enter Confirmation Number and Last Name
  • There are the options "Use future flight credit" or "Convert to travel certificate." Click the latter
  • Now as I go through this, the terms include "Validity: Can be applied to book a new ticket up to 24 months from today." So maybe we want to wait for a later "Today" to have it valid longer, but it's hard to imagine us not being able to take at least a domestic trip or have family visit us (since the ETC terms allow use by other travelers) within two years.
 
I've waited to post this until I saw the credit posted on our account - didn't want to jinx anything! We were able to get our United tickets refunded for our May 27 trip to France.

While we knew the trip wasn't going to happen, we kept waiting to see if the flights would be cancelled since we had purchased non-refundable tickets. I never received any notification from United, but on April 20th when I checked status they showed cancelled. At that point in time, the website only indicated ways to either rebook or get a credit for future travel. There was no information regarding refunds. At the bottom of the page was an "accept" button which I hesitated to hit, a little unsure of exactly what I was accepting.

I placed a call to United and was actually able to get through to someone within ten minutes. She walked me through the procedure to get a refund. She had me go to the main United website and NOT login. Using the My Trips button at the top of the page under the Manage My Trips you can choose Request a Refund. From that point on it was pretty self-explanatory, but she stayed on the line with me until it was completed. I did not question her as to why she had me complete the process through what was essentially a "back door" to get the refund rather than getting it through my account while logged in.

On May 14 we received an email that our refund had been approved and the credit appeared today. Please keep in mind that my experience was almost a month ago, so things may have changed on their website and maybe options are presented in a clearer fashion now.

Just thankful that we were able to get the refund since travel this year for us is looking highly unlikely. Besides being in the higher risk category ourselves, we are caretakers to my mother (93) and my aunt (91) so we will have to be extra cautious in resuming any kind of travel.

Now we'll just be waiting out our November trip which was booked on Aer Lingus but through BA. We know it's probably not going to happen, but at least it appears that BA's policies are more liberal than United's. At the current time, if we cancel, we can either rebook with no fees or get a credit that would be good until April 2022. I know things can still change given all the uncertainties right now - but I really, really want to hope that we can travel at least by late 2021.

We have already decided that when we are able to take that first trip, it will be to the Piedmont. We are missing our friends and family there.
 
Other news relating to United cancellations: they had taken the position that airline-cancelled flights were not refundable if they could re-accommodate you within six hours. Now the U.S. Dept. of Transportation has ruled that these are refundable if they were booked by an early March date and had a schedule change of at least two hours, as their contract of carriage said at that time.
 
Two of my trips were cancelled, one international and the other was domestic. We had an 18 day trip to Spain and Portugal through Gate1 Travel in April 2020. They initiated the cancellation and offered full credit for future trip if booked within 18 months.

As an option to future credit, Gate1's refund offer was 75% of the cost of the tour, and 100% of airfare, less any fees. I opted for the refund, given the uncertain financial situation of tour companies due to Covid-19. I received all of the promised money from Gate1 within two weeks of my original request.

I also received 100% refund from Airbnb for domestic trip. I corresponded twice with the host, who was totally unresponsive. My dates of reservation were within Airbnb's Covid-19 policy so they allowed a full refund despite the host's strict cancellation policy.

Conclusion​
I'm mildly disappointed that I didn't get 100% cash refund from Gate1 Travel, but it was my choice to take the 75% refund rather than the full credit for future trips. I'm sensitive to travel company's tenuos financial situation due to Covid-19. Although we enjoy independent travel, we have taken two prior small group tours with Gate1 Travel (Croatia/Slovenia and Greece), and have been highly satisfied with the quality of the tours and value for the money. Gate1's customer service is below average, but I will travel with them again.

Regarding Airbnb, I have used them multiple times and will do so again. However, in the future, I will restrict my reservations to Airbnb's "Superhosts". They are given "Superhost" designation after a record of good customer reviews and responsive customer service.
 
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