- How to cancel your upcoming trip
and get a refund, eight tips.
I'm Chris, this is Yellow Productions,
I do travel guides that are fun, informed,
and entertaining.
In this video I'm doing my special request
because I've gotten these questions over and over again,
first, Christ, what do you think my chances are
of getting refund for my upcoming trip?
Or two, Chris, how do I get my money back
for a flight the airline has canceled?
Both those questions I will answer in this video.
Some airlines and hotels have been really generous
with their refund policies, others though,
are in survival mode and basically refusing to issue
any cash refunds, only offering flight vouchers
for flights in the future,
for airlines that might not even be in business.
Travelers are experiencing call volumes
that are heavy, often hours, trying to call the airlines,
and so I'll give you some other tips
than just having to call the airlines and being on hold
for 14 hours.
Tip number one, go online and read your airline's, hotel,
cruise line's, refund and cancellation policy.
Many companies have issued special refund
and cancellation polices
just for the current pandemic outbreak,
so make sure to check out those too.
And they've been changing almost on daily basis,
so read up on that, find out what is covered,
and what isn't covered, so that you know what you can
actually work around and work with
for that particular company.
You also should read up on the refund policies
of the countries that your flight was traveling from or to,
for example, in the United States and the European Union,
you are eligible for a full refund if the airline
cancels your flight for any reason.
A cash refund, not a credit.
If you know what the government rules are,
then that gives you some leverage with the airline,
if you do have to talk to them later.
Tip number two, try refunding or canceling online.
Many airlines and travel companies that didn't use to
offer online cancellation and refund options now are,
why?
Because their call centers are inundated
and they can't handle it,
so their IT teams have added new capabilities
to cancel online, so check that out before you call,
and help avoid the frustration.
Now you might have checked a week ago and there wasn't
a cancellation option with your company
that you're flying or traveling with,
but there might be today.
If you can't find a way to cancel on the website,
well try their mobile apps,
some companies you can only cancel on the mobile app
'cause that's the team that they had that implemented it
and they haven't implemented it on the website yet.
Can't find anything in their mobile app?
Try filling out a customer service form on the website,
requesting a refund due to the cancellation.
Can't find the customer service form on their website?
Try looking up their Twitter account,
try looking up their Facebook account,
try looking up their email address,
try finding any other way to contact them
rather than calling them.
For recent hotel at a Marriott,
I emailed them and a week later they canceled it
and issued me a full refund,
it did take a little while,
and actually I never got a response to my email,
but they did cancel my reservation
and give me my money back.
Tip number three, if you do have to call them,
try calling during off-hours.
If you're calling a US based airline,
well try calling them at 1 a.m, Los Angeles Time,
chances are they're not getting many calls
from US people at that time.
If you still can't get through to the US numbers,
try calling some of their international call centers.
For example, United Airlines has a Singapore call center.
Sometimes you can find the international call center numbers
on the companies' websites, other times,
you might have to dig a little bit,
like you can search for American Airlines
international phone numbers in Google
and get various international call center numbers.
Now but you might be saying,
"Chris, it costs a lot of money to call long distance
"to Singapore or the Philippines,"
well then you should use something like Skype
where you can make long distance calls
for only like two cents a minute.
The two cents a minute you spend on that call
might be well worth saving the three hours on hold time
that you'd spend on the US line.
If it's a hotel that you're trying to cancel,
well try calling the hotel's direct number
instead of the general reservations line.
And if the hotel's busy or they don't answer,
well, leave them a voicemail,
that was how I canceled another hotel reservation
I was staying at, nobody would pick up the phone
in the hotel's local reservations,
I left them a voicemail, two days later,
canceled, full refund.
Now if you booked your flight, hotel, cruise,
via a third party like a travel agent,
or Expedia, or Booking.com,
well chances are you're gonna have to call them directly
and then adhere to their cancellation polices.
This is actually where I've heard travelers
having the most difficulty,
particularly with travel agents and cruises,
not offering very flexible cancellation policies
'cause the travel agents or these smaller websites,
small companies, they're hurting too,
and so they don't wanna give up all of their revenue.
Tip number four, wait.
If your trip isn't until May or June,
there's no rush to cancel it right now,
there's tons of people that are rushing to cancel trips
they have within the next three days,
in the next two weeks, let all those people
get through to cancel their things
and you can get through when the current crush of people
has subsided.
And also, in general,
airline cancellation and refund policies
are getting more generous, generally not less generous,
and so actually waiting a few weeks
might help you with the refund
because the airline might have
extended their policy to that,
or, they might've proactively canceled your flight
and given you a refund because you might've been traveling
to a destination that's closed, even for flights
leaving your country or going to that country.
Tip number five, when you do finally talk
to a phone agent, be nice, be humble,
even be pitiful, don't be arrogant, don't be rude,
don't be bossy, don't be angry,
none of those things will help you get what you want.
You want to make the telephone agent want to help you
and the way you do that is by being humble,
by being kind, by being thankful, and yes,
perhaps, even being a little bit pitiful.
Swallow up your pride and make that agent want to help you.
Make them want to give you that refund.
Make them feel that they making your day
and they're really helping you out
by giving you your money back.
And definitely thank them,
thank them for what they're doing,
thanks for answering the phone,
tell them that you know time's have been stressful for them,
they will really appreciate that and that will make them
want to help you.
Tip number six, this is a don't instead of a do.
Don't accept credit if what you want is a refund.
Many airlines, including American Airlines,
their first step is to offer you a voucher,
not a refund, and if while you're on the phone,
you accept that voucher for a future flight,
that's it, your chance of getting a refund,
pretty much entirely out the window.
Now some airlines are trying to sweeten the deal,
American Airlines in particular, will say,
"Hey, we'll give you 20% extra if you take a voucher."
But if you're not sure whether you're gonna be traveling
over the next 12 months or not,
then you might not really want that voucher,
you might want your money back,
'cause that'll give you more flexibility
to fly maybe another airline if they have cheaper rates.
And this is also where that information
that you read in tip number one,
where I told you go on your country's websites
to learn about the legal rules,
for example, the US and EU refunds,
you can say something, not in a Mister Know-It-All way,
but something in a kind of naive way,
where you allude to, "Well, I heard that flights from the US
"are eligible for refunds if they're canceled,
"so can't I get a refund under that policy?"
Be generic about it, don't say something like,
"Well you know, per US regulation, blah, blah, blah,
"and if not, I'm gonna call my lawyer,"
I mean, they really won't wanna help you at that point.
Tip number seven, if you're really not getting anywhere
with the telephone agent,
well hang up and call again.
These airlines, hotels, cruise companies,
they have a ton of phone agents,
phone agents are not often consistent,
and so the current one that you're talking to
might not help you, but if you hang up,
and you call again, you might get someone who does help you.
How many times you want to hang up and call again,
that is up to you, but I have found,
hanging up and calling again is always an option,
and often yields different results.
And when I say hang up and call again,
I don't mean be rude, I don't mean be like,
"I'm not talking to you anymore
"and I'm gonna call back,"
just, if you're not getting anywhere,
thank that agent for their time,
hang up, and call back again.
And when you call again, remember this new agent
is a new person you're talking to,
so just start your story all over again,
humble, pitiful, ask for help, you know the drill.
Tip number eight, if none of these things worked,
well then as a last resort,
you can dispute the charge with your credit card company.
The reason why this is a last resort
is banks typically require that you show proof
that you have tried to work with the party
to work things out before you file a dispute.
So all of these phone calls, emails,
you will want to have documented, times,
things you've said, who you've talked to,
what the policies are on the website,
what the policies are for the country,
and those are all the things you'll need to provide
to the credit card company to help in your dispute.
And if the facts are in your case
then the bank may very well side in your case
and issue you a refund and a charge back
to the travel provider.
Now once you've got your refund,
and I hope that you do,
if you're lookin for some ways to spend it,
and it won't be on travel right now,
'cause we're not really all traveling at the moment,
you can watch my video right here
about my every day carry,
these are the things like my suitcase, my cameras,
and all the stuff I travel around with.
Now might be a good time to up your travel game
with some new equipment.
As usual I won't say goodbye 'cause I'll see you
in this video.