ugh
As expected, I’m having a terrible time getting a refund from JustFly.com for our Paris-Boston flight. I made the request on June 10 and paid them a $70 handling fee. They said to call back in 24 hours. I knew THAT wasn’t realistic and called this morning, 12 days later. They said they hadn’t heard back from Norwegian Air about the request.
Coincidentally, I got an email from N.A. this morning about the flight being canceled so I decided to call them directly. The agent said she sees no record of a refund request. Grr. So I called JustFly back. His reply was that the requests go to a “special department.” What bull. He said they understand my concern and will mark my request as “URGENT” and I should call back in 72 hours. I said, “So you’ll be able tell me something in 72 hours?” and he said yes.
Of course, they WON’T know anything more on Thursday. At that point, I will call CapitalOne and contest the original charge and the handling fee.
And now it’s late morning and I haven’t gotten anything else done. 
The most frustrating aspect of all this is we DID the right thing and bought trip insurance (not cheap), but it’s worthless.
We have a wedding to fly to in FL in Jan. I realize that’s a long time away, but hearing of full flights doesn’t make me hopeful about feeling safe to fly then. I’d imagine that even the airlines that are keeping middle seats open now may abandon that policy in a few months.
@suzyQ7 oops, I meant to copy your question and instead I deleted your post! Your question was if I could ask N.A. to refund the money because some airlines are doing that.
I asked, and the N.A. agent said they can’t do anything on their end. Ugh, I don’t think I will use a third party site again.
@MaineLonghorn Thanks for bringing it back to my mind. I haven’t heard anything from JustFly either - or SAS. I guess I need to be spending more time on hold to get told the same thing. (sigh)
We are flying to Wisconsin in a few weeks. I found a direct flight from Portland to Minneapolis (the closest airport to my sister’s family’s cabin) to minimize time and contact. I was able to get first class tickets for the return due to credit card miles, but we stop in Philadelphia. I hope it goes OK.
Though I’m a little nervous, I finally booked my 21 y/o daughter a flight home in late July for 12 days. She hasn’t been home since mid-January when she returned to school after studying abroad fall semester. This is the longest we’ve gone without seeing her as she stayed in her off-campus apartment when her school went online. She then decided to stay for the summer since she had a reasonably safe off campus job and only required one extra month of rent (lease was thru June and school starting up 3 weeks early in August, so we would only have saved on July rent had she come home for the summer).
We were hesitant to have her fly home for a visit, but figured at least for now, it is reasonably safe to come home. Her next chance for coming home would be right before Thanksgiving when her fall semester ends, and I worry flying might be worse then. We have plenty of family in CA she can spend Thanksgiving with if she can’t fly home.
I managed to get a really cheap ticket on Southwest from San Diego to Baltimore. We used points for the outbound, and her return flight was only $120. I’d originally bought her a ticket to fly home in May when her spring semester ended and flights were dirt cheap. We canceled that flight when she decided to stay for the summer so we used the credit to pay for her return flight which was $5 less than our credit. She’s flying midweek both there and back so hopefully that will result in a less “full” flight. I’m glad that SWA just announced they are committed to keeping the middle seats open through at least September and will have her get a window seat which she prefers anyway.
Very excited to finally get to see her!
JustFly assures me my refund has been applied for. Then they added it will take about 12 weeks from when they applied for it. I don’t think I’m holding my breath about it. Time will tell. The lady on the phone was nice at least.
I also called SAS to see if they could tell me it had been applied for on their end, but the person I talked with couldn’t tell me. She said it’s a totally different department and they don’t have that info. Such is life.
DD’17 flew Southwest one-way last week. Middle seats were empty. Her problem was the lack of food at the airports. She couldn’t find any, though she noted one man had gotten a pizza somewhere.
@bjscheel thx for pointing that out. My daughter has a 5ish hour direct flight so I’ll remind her to bring something from home with her to eat on her flight, rather than expecting to grab a snack at the airport.
We have a non-stop from here to Denver in August. So far as I can tell, the middle seats are greyed out and cannot be reserved…yet.
We carry our own food.
My friend that returned from a trip last week confirmed the lack of food both in the airports she was at and on the plane.
Southwest is not permitting middle seat occupancy unless it is a family group.
Well, at least the info SAS gave you makes me feel a little better, since JF told me the same thing about it being a different department. I will keep hoping!
12 weeks is a long time. Sounds like they are hanging onto your $$ to keep them afloat until things (if) pick up.
I was supposed to fly Aer Lingus to Amsterdam in early April. They offered a chance to get a voucher - 10% more than the value of the ticket. There were no refunds being offered at that time - I applied for the voucher. Got an automated email, but nothing after that. When you call, you get a message saying they can’t answer questions about voucher status! D was in a similar situation, but she applied and got her voucher. Don’t know what happened to mine…
We just had a long road trip last weekend to drop D off. Traffic was very minimal and the drive actually took just as long as the original estimate from Waze. Not too many rest areas available on a large portion of our drive - we had to find gas stations and/or fast food joints that were open. Very clean restrooms, with clear marking for social distancing. We stopped the bare minimum number of times.
In Ohio, not too many people seemed to be worried about masks. Most people walking around didn’t have any. We did eat out once - using patio seating. The waitress did have a mask on. But really, it felt like a different world out there in Ohio, compared to MA.
I think mask compliance is pretty good in my part of Ohio where wearing a mask counts. In other words, not at the park on trails where there is plenty of space but in grocery stores for me I’ve seen a majority (>50%)
@MaineLonghorn, I too took out trip insurance for an expensive trip this year. USELESS for pandemic. I suspect they would have let us move the trip insurance or charged us less to rebuy IF we would have just moved our date, but we decided to cancel because we don’t know when we will feel it’s safe to do that trip again. (Biking in Northern Italy).
Just booked lodging and rented larger vehicle to take DD20 to school this fall. We are not willing to be at the mercy of an airline to get there or back. I’d much rather know she spent small amounts of time at a couple of rest stops off the highway on the way then hours in an airport and then on a plane next to strangers that may or may not take all of this seriously. I really hope things improve and my commitment to driving her feels overly cautious by the end of August, but I am not counting on it. My employer has cancelled all business travel through the end of the year.
We are flying our daughter home in August first class. The extra price is very worth the extra space.