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My flight with Swiss was cancelled and I've been trying to request a refund for several months now. Every time the customer service tells me that they are solving the issue and it was sent to the refund department. They never want to send me any confirmation email. I did not receive my money back.

I am a European Union citizen. What are my best options to file a complaint about the company? Can I file a complaint about Lufthansa, which I understand is the parent company?

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  • Your contract is with Swiss or a travel agent/booking site if you used them. The parent company will typically refer you to the party you have an agreement with (same with any other goods). I.e. Lufthansa is not responsible for your flight if you booked it with Swiss even if they are the parent company. (As a side note, this reminds me I should still be getting Eurostar vouchers...) - Add to that, basically every travel company finds itself in a refunds nightmare right now, so I would not be surprised if there are delays of months as departments are not sized for such workloads.
    – DetlevCM
    Jul 20, 2020 at 19:13
  • From where to where was the flight? And where do you usually reside?
    – Krist van Besien
    Jul 21, 2020 at 12:07
  • Look on the European site for passenger rights. You get the list of country authorities for complains. Swiss was obliged to reimburse quickly tickets, in order to get state aid, but..
    – Giacomo Catenazzi
    Jul 21, 2020 at 13:10
  • What is your goal here? Are you trying to get a refund or just trying to punish the airline?
    – Comic Sans Strikephim
    Jul 21, 2020 at 23:56
  • I am trying to get a refund. I called several times and they keep telling me they are processing the refund, but then it doesn't happen. I call again and they tell me the second time to call again a day or two.
    – gruszczy
    Jul 22, 2020 at 0:10

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UPDATE (2021/05/19): For all of my cancelled flights (over 100) I have - based on my choice - either received full reimbursement or was able to re-book into the future. The refunds office is pretty much back on track again to quickly refund your cancelled flights. Top notch service by Swiss!

ORIGINAL REPLY:

Being a HON Circle member, I can tell you first-hand that out of my already 80+ cancelled flights since March 19, 2020 at the time of this writing, not a single leg of the ones I did not post-pone has been refunded.

The reason you are waiting: for the first couple of months the refund office was closed down due to Covid-19. They have only recently begun to process the huge backlog of refunds and are ramping up as quickly as possible.

Plea for more information: you didn't specify your fare class, origin, destination, date of purchase, origin of purchase (LX site, third-party vendor), method of purchase, etc. Therefore, it's difficult to gauge which process your refund will take.

Answering your question: complaints can be initiated through here: https://www.swiss.com/ch/EN/customer-support/complaints-and-compliments. It will go to even a larger queue of pending requests than your refund inquiry. Once you share more information, maybe there is another way.

Two options for you going forward:

  • Patience on your side given what you have just learned.
  • Complain (does not speed up the other queue given these challenging times)
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