Deactivated Credit Card causes Refund Issues -Help!

[Andrew G]

I have been trying to get a refund of the taxes for canceled tickets from Qantas for flights canceled last July.

We deactivated the credit card used so have had to send in a stat dec and letters from the bank to have it redirected. Fair enough and we did this.

Since then we have followed up with Qantas numerous times. We have followed all instructions and have now resent the stat dec and letters at least 5 times as each call has a different resolution and we are not actually allowed to speak with the refunds department!

A number of call centre staff have expressed exasperation with the refunds department and have gone into bat for us as they could see that the refunds had not been made.

Oh, and as they call refunds the wait is regularly over an hour.

Additionally, I have contacted the Customer Service area three times and lodged written complaints and again no response.

If anyone has any tips about how to escalate or even talk to someone about such issues I'd appreciate a hand!

Thanks

 

[Danger]

How long did Qantas take to process your refund for cancelled flights?

Qantas is telling many customers (including me) that refunds for cancelled flights is currently taking around 10 weeks to be processed. Qantas has claimed (according to some media reports) that " most refunds are being processed within six weeks", which does not seem to be the experience of many...

www.australianfrequentflyer.com.au

 

[serfty]

If anyone has any tips about how to escalate or even talk to someone about such issues I'd appreciate a

Have you considered the Airline Customer Advocate?

It is a lesson to avoid cancelling cards used to pay $$$ until after the flights have been flown.

(Of course sometimes that cannot be done.)

 

[woodyren]

Should have just let the $$$ return to the cancelled card. Refunds can be deposited back to inactive cards without issue. You then contact the card issuer who transfers the refund to a bank of your choice. I have had a least 20 refunds to cancelled cards in the last two years.

 

[madrooster]

Should have just let the $$$ return to the cancelled card. Refunds can be deposited back to inactive cards without issue. You then contact the card issuer who transfers the refund to a bank of your choice. I have had a least 20 refunds to cancelled cards in the last two years.

Correct. The best part about this is they don't take the rewards points back off you either...

 

[Must...Fly!]

I had a $65 refund processed by QF to a cancelled card but Citibank could never find it. Not worth the pain of chasing up, sometimes one's sanity is worth more. I learned though, per tip from @serfty, just to use my debit card if there is any danger the credit card will be cancelled within 2-3 months of the departure date of the flight. Sure I give up a few points but again sometimes peace of mind is worth paying for.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

I had a $65 refund processed by QF to a cancelled card but Citibank could never find it. Not worth the pain of chasing up, sometimes one's sanity is worth more. I learned though, per tip from @serfty, just to use my debit card if there is any danger the credit card will be cancelled within 2-3 months of the departure date of the flight. Sure I give up a few points but again sometimes peace of mind is worth paying for.

Choice between two evils… calling citbank or qantas… but given the current wait times for QF I’d probably rather make multiple calls to Citi!

 

[I love to travel]

Anyone had experience with refunds to St George closed credit cards. It seems unclear whether stat Dec is still an option

 

[MelbFlyer]

I've had refunds back to cancelled cards (which I got purely for the purpose of accumulating bonus points) - just wait for the funds to land back (required to call the CC company though) and they'll perform a transfer of those funds back to a nominated bank account.

 

[JonD]

I have been trying to get a refund of the taxes for canceled tickets from Qantas for flights canceled last July.

We deactivated the credit card used so have had to send in a stat dec and letters from the bank to have it redirected. Fair enough and we did this.

Since then we have followed up with Qantas numerous times. We have followed all instructions and have now resent the stat dec and letters at least 5 times as each call has a different resolution and we are not actually allowed to speak with the refunds department!

A number of call centre staff have expressed exasperation with the refunds department and have gone into bat for us as they could see that the refunds had not been made.

Oh, and as they call refunds the wait is regularly over an hour.

Additionally, I have contacted the Customer Service area three times and lodged written complaints and again no response.

If anyone has any tips about how to escalate or even talk to someone about such issues I'd appreciate a hand!

Thanks

Did this ever get sorted? I am in exactly the same boat, numerous calls, emails, resent the stat dec, told different information etc

 

[xhiver]

I had a similar experience in the recent weeks on refunds credited back to my closed ANZ credit card - which only got resolved a few days ago. Thought I share my experience in case anyone in a similar boat.

It’s a reward flight cancellation with VA and prior to cancellation, I called them up to cancel the flight and ask the fund to be credited back to my nominated savings account. They agreed and asked to send an email to VA accounts email with the new bank details (there was no stat dec needed it seems for VA). So I sent the email right after the call but no response until 2 weeks later saying it was too late and they already refunded the money to the closed credit card…

Anyway long story short after numerous of calls to ANZ and Virgin back and forth, they kept saying the money was not with either of them. This went on for a few weeks even though the refund was already issued for more than a month. I decided it was enough and lodged a complaint to ANZ through their complaint form - again with all the details included. An ANZ agent onshore called me the next day and decided to give me the refund into my nominated account straight away.

It was a painful and stressful experience but I hope this can help some people. So I guess what I learnt is once the refund is issued, the money is already somewhere with the bank. Otherwise they wouldn’t credit the money back to me. I also heard you can make a complaint to AFCA - which was what I was going to do if my complaint to ANZ was not working.

Hope this helps!

 

[jpp42]

I had a similar case where a merchant had refunded the money to a closed ANZ card and ANZ "lost" the funds (they were not returned to the merchant). It was a fairly small amount of money, like $40 or something, and eventually I gave up fighting for it. A couple of years later I was dealing with a different ANZ account issue and spoke to a helpful agent who said something like, "oh we have $40 sitting here in a closed credit card account, should I credit this to your savings?" They did it instantly. So it seems to be all about speaking to the right person at the bank, I just luckily ran across someone who knew what to do, rather than seeking it out myself.

Anyway, just to add to the experiences that if the airline/merchant says they have refunded the old card, they may actually have in fact done so and it's better to follow-up on the bank side, especially with Qantas' legendary terrible customer service.

 

[funnybrus]

I've had a couple of woeful experiences with ANZ here, money always ends up back at the merchant, but often not for months.

NAB and partners (ex-citi) are much better, a cheque just turns up in the mail.