Etihad Refund...47euro?

[Lamps]

We had a flight booked with Etihad - Beijing to Abu Dhabi and Abu Dhabi to Dublin 2 days later.

We made it to Abu Dhabi, were we had planned to stay a couple of nights. 2 nights later our flight was cancelled due to the ash. They rang us and told us the next flight they could put us on was 11 days away, so we asked about a refund. They said it would be roughly half of the 550euros we paid for the entire flight (Beijing to Dublin). Fair enough says us, cancel the flight and we'll make our own way home.

Anyway today i checked my account and there was a 47euro refund

We rang Etihad, presuming this was a mistake and they said no, your entitled to 47euros each and thats it. Soem guy that could hardly speak English then gave us some waffle and told us thats it.

Now we're going mad here, we could of stayed over there and stayed in hotels at their expense and cost them a fortune, but we didnt. it ended up costing us a bomb to get home.

This cant be right can it? Any suggestions on how we can take this further or what to do?We had multitrip travel insurance but as this is an act of God we've no comebacK?

 

[oldnick]

I am guessing but may be wrong that some robo-employee has given you the difference between the Beijung-Dublin price and the Beijing- A.Dubai price, which could indeed be very similar despite the distances involved. (If you still have contacts in Beijing they could verify this by finding out from Etihad what is the B-Dub price and the B-A.Dub price).

Unless you have the original promise of a fifty-fifty refund in writing you may have a struggle, especially as there is no established office in Ireland.

As for insurance,little hope.

 

[emmt]

I agree with oldnick. The way these refunds <i>generally</i> work is that they refund you the difference between the cost of what you flew i.e. Etihad - Beijing to Abu Dhabi and the full itinerary. In the circumstances, you'd hope an exception would be made but you'd need to get in contact with someone who could authorise this for you. i.e not some robo-employee