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I had books a set of flights that were due to occur in early April. When everyone started locking down the borders etc we cancelled them. Most were through an airline directly, and were converted to credit immediately (could have pushed for refund but credit is fine as we still wanted to make the trip at some point).

One leg however was through a travel agent/reseller. (Dreamworld travel UK), but I want to keep the question general anyway.

They emailed us back when we asked for it to be cancelled saying that it would be refunded, but that they are very busy with the volume of refunds they are processing and it might be a while. We contacted them again a month later, and they said similarly they are very busy but to expect to hear from them in 6-8 weeks. It has now been much more than that and have heard nothing.

I can keep emailing them, but is there anything in particular I should be saying? Do I have a certain right to a refund that i should be highlighting? Should I attempt to solve this though my travel insurance? I have a year round travel-insurance policy taken out long before Covid.

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  • There are many previous threads on this matter, and articles in the news going back for months. Airlines, hotels, travel agents, and other travel-related businesses are strapped for cash and are using every possible maneuver to avoid paying out cash refunds, even after scolding from regulators. There are no magic words that will change this situation. Just keep calling.
    – choster
    Aug 3, 2020 at 14:49

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(Threaten to) take them to small claims court

In most countries taking someone to small claims court is faily cheap and straight forward, and doesn't require a lawyer. That's basically its whole point, to let people recovour money they are owes where the cost of a laywer would be a decent portion of what they are trying to recover. I am not a lawyer, but if they have said they will give you the refund then it is probably straight forward. There might not even be a hearing. You will come out of it with them having been instructed to pay you what they owe. Plus the courts costs, maybe plus interest (in the UK 8% per annum for this kind of thing). If they still don't pay you, you can then ask the court to recover the money (which might be freezing their bank accounts)

Once you start doing that seriously, they will likely give in an pay you. Since then they don't need to pay the court cost on top.

My experience after waiting over a year was was that i told them they had 2 weeks to pay me, or i would go to small claims court. Then when they didn't, I filled in the small claims court paper work, listing evidence etc and sent them a PDF of the final "Please confirm these details are correct before you submit" page; and told them i would be submitting the paperwork at the end of the week. After that they paid up. Just telling them I would take them to small claims court wasn't enough, but seeing that i was actually serious got them to finally act.

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