Sought refunds from Ryanair

For a Ryanair flight from Edinburgh, Scotland, to Dublin, Ireland, departing May 23, 2020, on Jan. 14 I booked tickets for our tour group of eight through Roxanne McCallum at the excellent travel agency Travelosophy (Commerce Township, MI; 800/332-2687, itravelosophy.com). The cost was $727.11 total, or about $91 per person.

In late March 2020, Roxanne informed me that, due to COVID-19, Ryanair had canceled all of its April and May flights.

On April 5, on my own, I purchased eight new tickets for Aug. 1, 2020, directly from the airline, to be sure we had the tickets in case COVID eased. According to Ryanair’s website (ryanair.com) during my rebooking, they gave me a credit in the amount of the original tickets, but the cost of the tickets had gone up, so the replacement tickets cost an additional $596.99. The total I had paid to Ryanair at that point was $1,324.10.

On July 13, I got a notice that there was a schedule change of 8½ hours to the Aug. 1 flight. A delay of that length qualifies for a full refund, so I canceled our flight and applied for the refund. In a live chat with a Ryanair rep a couple of days later, I was told to expect the refund in 2 to 10 weeks.

Several weeks later, on Aug. 30, I made a request to my credit card company, American Express (AmEx), to refund the $596.99 I had additionally paid for the Aug. 1 flight. AmEx refused my request for a refund after learning Ryanair was working on it. AmEx advised me to continue to contact Ryanair.

After another live chat with a Ryanair rep on Oct. 6, I refiled a Customer Verification Form and again requested the refund of $596.99 for the Aug. 1 flight. On Nov. 25, in another live chat, a customer service agent said I would be refunded within 28 days.

Since then, there have been four more “chats” but still no refund for the Aug. 1, 2020, flights. An email I sent on Feb. 22, 2021, generated only an auto-response acknowledgment from Ryanair. In early June, Roxanne sent in yet another refund request but to no avail.

When it became fairly clear that the UK would open up by August 2021 and that I would need new Edinburgh-Dublin tickets, I checked online for flights. At the time, early June, the only airline flying that route was Ryanair. I swallowed hard and, for $406.35, booked their only flight of the day for all my tour members for the approximately 14:00 departure on Aug. 31, 2021.

Within days, Ryanair had changed the flight to a 23:00 departure, a nearly 9-hour delay — far too late for us — which qualified me for a full refund. On Ryanair’s website, when I canceled the flight, the airline even asked me if I wanted a refund or credit. I chose the refund, filled out all of the paperwork and was told that I would receive a full refund of the $406.35 within a short time. Emails confirmed that.

As of mid-November 2021, I still had heard no further word from Ryanair and gotten no refund of the latest booking nor of the previous one.

In the meantime, Aer Lingus restarted their Edinburgh-Dublin flights, and I booked tickets with them for our group of, now, six including me (two had dropped out). On Aug. 31, we successfully flew from Edinburgh to Dublin on Aer Lingus during our tour of a week each in London, Edinburgh and Dublin.

Ryanair now has over $1,700 of my money, and my group never flew with them.

MIKE ROSS
Jackson, MI

ITN emailed a copy of Mr. Ross’ account to Ryanair on Nov. 16, 2021, and received an automated response. The next day, Mr. Ross informed ITN that he had received an apology in an email from a Ryanair Customer Services representative. In a Nov. 18 email, the rep wrote to him, “We wish to confirm that a refund of $1,324.10 and $406.35 has been authorized by Ryanair in full and final settlement of your claim under regulation EU261/2004, and this transaction should be reflected within the next 7-10 working days on the AmEx card… which was used at the time of making your reservation.”

On Nov. 26, Mr. Ross reported that he had received a complete refund of $1,730.45.