Avianca Brazil flights cancelled

[Mattg]

I have a couple of domestic flights booked with Avianca Brazil for travel in July. Trouble is, the airline is now on the verge of bankruptcy and they've just cancelled a heap of flights, including mine. I think the company is still operating for now, but with only a handful of planes.

Some background here - Bankrupt Avianca Brazil cancels more than 1,000 flights – Business Traveller

In any case, my original flights have been cancelled and I've been rebooked on other flights scheduled to leave much later on the same day. (I received no notification about this from the airline.) The new flights are not available for sale though, so I'm quite sure they will never operate. And the new timings don't work for me anyway.

I will book new flights on other airlines, but how does one get a refund from Avianca Brazil in this instance? I've tried to contact Avianca Brazil through its call centre and online chat, but the lines are disconnected and the chat also is offline.

I booked through the Avianca Brazil website and paid via Paypal - should I ask Paypal to process a refund now? Or should I wait until the airline declares insolvency? Any thoughts are welcome.

 

[serfty]

You may be entitled to a refund on the flights booked with PayPal.

You'll need to open a "dispute" within 180 days of payments by going to the "Resolution Centre" and click "Dispute a Transaction".

 

[Aussiejosh]

oh great. I booked a flight last week between SDU and CGH in Aug. Maybe I should of gone with LATAM

 

[pauly7]

Good luck hope you get your money back!

There will be a lot of Lifemiles churners looking very green at the moment too.

 

[Melburnian1]

[QUOTE="pauly7, post: 1942431, member: 4293"..There will be a lot of Lifemiles churners looking very green at the moment too.
[/QUOTE]

Hasn't Avianca Lifemiles been heavily promoted by AFF in the past as a great FF scheme?

 

[Nisho]

Avianca Colombia still exists so I am presuming the Lifemiles FF program should be fine.

 

[RooFlyer]

Hasn't Avianca Lifemiles been heavily promoted by AFF in the past as a great FF scheme?

Embraced enthusiastically by many AFF members But like every FF scheme it has its plusses and minuses and depends on the airlines connected with it.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Good luck hope you get your money back!

There will be a lot of Lifemiles churners looking very green at the moment too.

I think this is something akin to all the jetstar or air asia franchises (vietnam, indonesia, japan, etc). Avianca Brazil won’t affect the operations of Avianca Columbia, nor the Lifemiles program.

But... a good reminder that with Lifemiles you only need 40% (42% for the ‘sweet spot’) of miles to purchase an award, with the rest available through paid top up. While this method costs 1.5c per mile and is slightly more expensive than the 1.345c you can get during a bonus promotion, it certainly limits any losses in the event of a bankruptcy.

 

[Mattg]

You may be entitled to a refund on the flights booked with PayPal.

You'll need to open a "dispute" within 180 days of payments by going to the "Resolution Centre" and click "Dispute a Transaction".

I've just disputed the transactions with Paypal. They say it will take up to 30 days to get a resolution... will post here if/when that happens.

oh great. I booked a flight last week between SDU and CGH in Aug. Maybe I should of gone with LATAM

Definitely keep an eye on those flights!

Hasn't Avianca Lifemiles been heavily promoted by AFF in the past as a great FF scheme?

As others have said, Avianca Brazil is a separate entity to Avianca so LifeMiles is not affected. However, it is a good reminder not to hoard miles!

 

[ajca]

Sucks to hear about those who hold current Avianca Brazil tickets, sorry guys

If you need an alternative for domestic flights in Brazil I would highly recommend Azul, they go pretty much everywhere an the have a lovely smaller Embraer jets with 2-2 seatings which is super comfortable. Their website are service are already better than anything else I could fin dthere.

 

[Mattg]

Well within 24 hours of disputing the transactions on Paypal, I received an email from Avianca Brazil with a link to a form where I can request a refund. I have now submitted this form, so let's see what happens.

The email very much downplayed the issues the airline is having...

We received your concern through the PayPal form and we would like to inform that due to a possible reduction of our fleet, and in order to minimise the impact on the operations and passengers, we have decided to make occasional cancellations of flights. However, Avianca is still operating.

 

[Mattg]

An update on this:

I've already received a refund via Paypal for one of the flights, now just waiting for the second one to be processed. Colour me impressed.

I ended up rebooking one of the flights on GOL (using Etihad miles that were due to expire next month) and another on Azul, following ajca's suggestion. I've never flown Azul but they seem to run a reasonable operation and it looks like they also happen to partner with UA, which is handy for me.

 

[ajca]

An update on this:

I've already received a refund via Paypal for one of the flights, now just waiting for the second one to be processed. Colour me impressed.

I ended up rebooking one of the flights on GOL (using Etihad miles that were due to expire next month) and another on Azul, following ajca's suggestion. I've never flown Azul but they seem to run a reasonable operation and it looks like they also happen to partner with UA, which is handy for me.

GOL is fine too, just more like Jetstar

Enjoy Brazil, such an awesome fun place!

 

[Mattg]

Brazilian aviation regulators have now suspended all Avianca Brazil flights citing safety concerns. The ban is supposedly temporary, but I can't really see the airline coming back from here. Until this moment they were only operating ~30 flights per day anyway, which is a skeleton of their former operations.

Brazil suspends operations of airline Avianca Brasil

Brazil's civil aviation regulator ANAC said on Friday it had suspended all flights and operations of carrier Avianca Brasil in the country as a precautionary measure, following the company's filing for bankruptcy late last year.

www.reuters.com