Well that's interesting.......air canada and cancelations because of Covid

[dodgestang]

Just thought I would share......we all know by now Canada has essentially shut down cruising again for 2021.

So....I'm tired of floating interest free loans to all these companies and officially moving into "I want my money back" stance.

Air Canada...booked Sept 2019 airfare for August 2020, paid them $8k for tickets....cruise was cancelled, they gave me voucher, I said okay.

I lifted/shifted August 2020 cruise to August 2021 so wasn't a big deal.

Applied the voucher to new airfare in Sept 2020 for trip in August 2021, paid $900 difference since I changed airports.

So called today.....would just like to cancel and get a refund.  Sorry sir, these tickets were bought with Vouchers, can't get a refund.  But you can go to our website and fill out our contact us form and explain why we should give you a refund and maybe you'll get one, good luck (that is word for word what the CS operator said to me).  And yes....I feel like an idiot...I filled out the form and will wait for the "sorry, no refunds" email.

In parallel I call up credit card since I have travel insurance....or at least I used to.

Luck for me......I bought tickets Sept 3, 2019 and they stopped having travel insurance on Sept 20, 2019.  So I opened a claim for the first (largest amount).  But looks like I may be out $900 at this point. 

So now here it is Friday night, I should be good mood and I am fuming mad at Air Canada and now mad at Citi because both my wife and I can't recall ever being told our travel insurance part of the card (one of the reasons we use this specific card) went away.

Ah well.....sorry for the vent....the cracks in society are not only showing, they are turning into fissures.  Now I suppose I can't request a refund from RCL until the officially cancel....which they won't do for months at this point.

[twangster]

We all have good days and bad days in reference to experiences with companies during this pandemic.  AirBnB and American Airlines have both made it on my never do business with again list due to how they handled pandemic related issues.

Heck back in Colorado they shut down the vehicle emissions testing sites because of the pandemic but the county charged me a penalty for not getting my emissions test done on time even though the reason I didn't was because they closed the testing sites. Even our governments aren't getting it right.  

As far as Royal, yes you are much better to wait until they cancel if a refund is your preferred solution (unless you booked a refundable fare).  

[DunkelBierJay]

17 hours ago, twangster said:

Even our governments aren't getting it right. 

I am so glad I had put my coffee down when I read this sentence.

[monctonguy]

Canadian airlines are notoriously horrible...for service, pricing, options, etc. I try to NEVER fly with a Canadian airline.

 

I had flights with Air Allegiant and United and they were both great and easy to deal with for a full refund.

 

I have lost hundreds of dollars with AC in the past with vouchers and make sure I let everyone I know when I travel not to ever choose AC and how much better and easier and cheaper it is to fly with an American airline if you can.

[whitsmom]

I will be calling Delta to get my flights cancelled for our Canada/New England cruise.  We got a voucher with Delta last time as we did the L&S and had to wait until booking our flight dates opened up.  We will be going somewhere so a voucher will probably be okay for that; however, we have decided to get a refund for our cruise.  Which will probably take them forever to cancel!  I did use a TA so hopefully they can get the ball rolling on that. 

[Snowchaser]

On 2/8/2021 at 8:11 AM, monctonguy said:

Canadian airlines are notoriously horrible...for service, pricing, options, etc. I try to NEVER fly with a Canadian airline.

 

I had flights with Air Allegiant and United and they were both great and easy to deal with for a full refund.

 

I have lost hundreds of dollars with AC in the past with vouchers and make sure I let everyone I know when I travel not to ever choose AC and how much better and easier and cheaper it is to fly with an American airline if you can.

I had to chuckle at this as being from Michigan we typically drive to Toronto for Europe or Caribbean flights.  I have always found it to be significantly cheaper, not to mention long term parking is less as well.  Our flight to London from Toronto in 2019 was a quarter the price of flying out of Detroit and the Detroit flights had lay-overs in, you guessed it, Toronto. 

[monctonguy]

Thats INSANE..I have never heard that in over 2 decades of flying..cant imagine that's the norm..or perhaps it was a strange season......although out of Toronto flights are much cheaper than here on the east coast..it costs more for me just to fly to toronto than the whole cost of most of my cruises...and I can't cruise form Toronto so....

 

The US dollar also being worth 30-40% more helps as well for you guys....

[Lovetocruise2002]

14 minutes ago, Snowchaser said:

I had to chuckle at this as being from Michigan we typically drive to Toronto for Europe or Caribbean flights. 

Really?  I am from Southern Ontario and I drive to DTW to fly to Canada, US, and International! lol  

Way cheaper and more flexible times.  This summer we are thinking of heading out to the Rockies since it doesn't look like we'll be cruising and I'm looking at AC and not liking what I see at all.

[Snowchaser]

 

1 hour ago, monctonguy said:

 

 

The US dollar also being worth 30-40% more helps as well for you guys....

Your not wrong there, on that last trip to London we pre-bought our parking for two weeks at what I thought was $105usd, I get by CC bill and it was Canadian and was actually ~$75usd.  I thought $105 was a steal but geesh I'll take it.

1 hour ago, Lovetocruise2002 said:

Really?  I am from Southern Ontario and I drive to DTW to fly to Canada, US, and International! lol  

Way cheaper and more flexible times.  This summer we are thinking of heading out to the Rockies since it doesn't look like we'll be cruising and I'm looking at AC and not liking what I see at all.

Don't get me wrong, for U.S./San Juan flights DTW is where I would head too.  I hear people complain about cruising out of San Juan due to flight costs but SJU from DTW is about as cheap as you get for a direct flight.

[Ray]

KLM gave me vouchers instead of cash refund last year, i used vouchers to rebook flights for my rebooked cruise which was meang ti be in 4 weeks. Obviously cruise was cancelled and my concern was that because i used vouchers i would again be given this, but no!!!! To my shock KLM issued a full cash refund even though flight has not been cancelled. 

KLM got a lot of bad press last year its good to see they are now trying to make up for that.