I was meant to fly out tonight. But nope. It would been pure dumb. But it would also have been impossible with various legs of my itinerary cancelled. It was a bit of a process to get everything cancelled and refunded.
Timing was critical as I wanted, as much as possible, the provider to initiate the cancellation in order to get a refund. If I had initiated the cancellation, I would either be penalised or be eligible for a credit only:
- Malaysia Airlines (Auckland – Kuala Lumpur – Manila – Kuala Lumpur – Kuching – Kuala Lumpur – Auckland): I had booked my complex multi-city itinerary via Expedia due to issues with the airline’s website that day. With two tight connections in that itinerary, I didn’t want to risk breaking the booking into two separate ones.
Getting hold of Expedia was impossible by phone as the line would get cut off after 3h waiting (or less at times). When I finally got hold of them, I was unfortunate to get a useless rep that told me that he fare was not refundable even though they had cancelled several legs and shifted one leg by two days. Their call centre staff are normally very competent.
Malaysia Airlines’ call centre was much better. They knew what they were doing and reassured me that I was entitled to a full refund because of the severity of the cancellations and changes. But they had no authority to touch a booking that was made by Expedia unless travel had commenced.
By using an email address which I had gained from a previous interaction, I managed to email Expedia again. Fortunately this time they confirmed a full refund. - United Airlines (Manila – Koror – Manila): They cancelled the flights. I was able to ring Air New Zealand who issued the ticket on points. Full refund of the points and full refund of the hefty environment tax.
- AirAsia (Manila – Boracay): Their chat-bot AVA processed my refund for my cancelled flight easily.
- Cebu Pacific (Boracay – Manila): Their Manage Booking function allowed me to refund my cancelled flight easily too.
- MASWings (Kuching – Mukah -Kuching): This is Malaysia Airlines’ rural air service operated by Twin Otter aircraft. All their fares are changeable and refundable for a small penalty of USD6. All I had to do was retrieve my booking and click on a button.
- Hotels: All except one hotel on the trip was cancellable and refundable. The exception was in Boracay.I monitored Hotels.com and they had modified their cancellation policies country-by-country where there had been significant barriers to travel, and allowed refund of non-refundable bookings.
Unfortunately Philippines wasn’t one of them. But I waited until Philippines was added to the list. Soon after that, the complexities of managing such a list grew too much. They allowed refunds on all non-refundable bookings. Well done!
On the other hand, Booking.com didn’t seem to have such a blanket policy for non-refundable bookings. They required customers to write in and request special consideration for each affected booking. Fortunately I had none that required such action.