Jetstar Is It Right for Them to Only Supply a Credit Voucher and Not a Refund?

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Jetstar Airways

• 

  SelfMade on 08/10/2020 - 11:50

  I too booked that fare to vietnam, got the credit voucher but would much rather the refund especially since so many travel related businesses are heading for bankruptcy or already are.

  We could possibly do a chargeback request via the card used to pay for the flights?

  • 

    nosrad on 03/08/2022 - 14:06

    Did you end up doing a chargeback?

• 

  jimbobaus on 08/10/2020 - 11:57

  the ACCC has stated vouchers are permitted.

  Qantas, Jetstar and Virgin have all gotten authority from the Federal Court to refuse refunds and only issue vouchers
  This permission was sought to protect their financial security and to protect them during the pandemic.
  The court order allows them for a period of 12 months to not have to adhere to their own conditions with the protection of the court

  This also means if you attempt a charge back they will fight it and win and your card will be re-charged if the chargeback has already resulted in your money being returned to you.

  Saying that, Qantas and Jetstar are known to give refunds if pushed hard enough but it all depends on your ticket type i believe
  Tickets that normally would be non refundable anyways are allowed to be "refunded" as vouchers only and Jetstar are standing their ground in this regard

  Virgin Federal Court Action:
  https://www.smh.com.au/business/companies/virgin-australia-c…

  • 

    contrafibularities on 08/10/2020 - 12:27

    +3

    the ACCC has stated vouchers are permitted.

    Not true. The ACCC has stated that the question of refund or credit depends on the terms and conditions of the ticket at the time of purchase. Different airlines and ticket classes have different T&Cs some allow for refunds some all for credits.

    Qantas, Jetstar and Virgin have all gotten authority from the Federal Court to refuse refunds and only issue vouchers
    This permission was sought to protect their financial security and to protect them during the pandemic.

    Citation?. Only Virgin has gotten that clearance due to insolvency. Qantas/Jetstar has not.

    • 

      jimbobaus on 08/10/2020 - 12:36

      -3

      Not true. The ACCC has stated that the question of refund or credit depends on the terms and conditions of the ticket at the time of purchase. Different airlines and ticket classes have different T&Cs some allow for refunds some all for credits.

      I am not going to google this for you
      Its easy to find
      They have Federal court protections (they literally did it after Virgin got it for their insolvency)

      • 

        contrafibularities on 08/10/2020 - 12:52

        -1

        Because it doesn’t exist. Qantas got some IR protections but nothing has been ordered in relation to refunds to consumers. The court has no jurisdiction to do so. People who had tickets where they were entitled to a refund are still entitled to a refund. Best to get the facts straight so as not to mislead people on the forum.

    • 

      itx on 08/10/2020 - 14:14

      +2

      Agree with contrafibularities - I think saying airlines are permitted to only offer vouchers is a bit of a stretch as it's far more nuanced. From my research (and I'm happy to be proven wrong), I think it works more along the lines of this:

      It comes back to basic contracting, which the ACCC can't override:

      Question 1 is whether the passenger initiated the cancellation or not

      • if the passenger initiated the cancellation before the airline cancelled the flight then the voluntary cancellation rules in the booking T&Cs will prevail, and it doesn't matter that there's COVID raging out there and you couldn't really travel. If the fare you booked is non-refundable (which most of these cheap economy fares are) then you're out of luck. If you're lucky the airline may have put in an exception rule that provides you with a voucher, which is actually quite generous of them as they're not required to do that contractually.

      • if the airline was the one who initiated the cancellation, go to question 2.

      Question 2 is if the airline cancels, what do your terms and conditions say?

      • if the booking terms say you're entitled to a refund then that's as clear as it gets

      • if the booking terms say specifically that you're not entitled to a refund even when the carrier cancels then you're out of luck - though I can't think of any airlines that had such a term as it'd be extremely harsh (and possibly unenforceable if it got to the courts) (usually the airline cancellation clause will say that the airline can choose to rebook/reroute/put you on an alternative comparable service/airline, and/or cancel the booking - but again it'd be a stretch to say that means giving you a voucher is fine)

      • if your booking terms don't say either way, practically speaking what the airlines are doing is applying whatever operational policy they have in their systems - but applying those policies isn't necessarily the same as applying what your contract says. If their policy is to provide a voucher and you accept, then you've effectively agreed to a remedy that's not cash. If they provide a voucher but you don't accept, you're simply protecting your contractual rights - which allows you to keep fighting until you get a cash refund (but it may be a long and painful journey that may end up with you having to go to a small claims court/tribunal). Most people get confused here because when you call up the airline the agent doesn't exactly make it clear to you whether you have other rights or not.

      • if your airline is insolvent (e.g. Virgin pre buyout), your terms and conditions don't really mean much anymore as the insolvency process kicks in, and you're effectively a creditor and are in the credit recovery queue. In the case of Virgin, the administrator wanted to preserve goodwill by issuing all sorts of vouchers to customers (vouchers, conditional credits, future travel credits, etc etc), and Bain (the buyer) plans to honour it (with some strings attached), but that's effectively at their discretion and they weren't actually under any obligation to honour the value of your original flights.

      Airline terms and conditions are generally referred to as "Conditions of Carriage" (though there are sometimes other documents to go with it), and most travelers would never bother seeking it out.

      Question 3 is if you booked with a travel agent, what do their terms say?

      • you sort of have to apply the same tests as in question 2 again, but with the travel agent's terms (this is one of the major downsides when you book with an agent - you might have terms to abide by with both the agent and the airline). Historically most travel agents haven't had any provisions in their T&Cs that levy a fee for processing cancellations and refunds, but this has started to change in recent months.

      Final thing to remember is when we talk about terms and conditions, they should be the terms that existed at the time you made the booking, not what is the most current version the airline/travel agent has published - a party to a contract generally can't just change the terms by themselves. The hard thing is who really kept all these historical copies of terms and conditions for reference? You can find some old copies through internet caches, but it'll hardly capture everything.

      Then completely separate to all of that is the credit chargeback process, which shouldn't be seen as a way to enforce your contract - they're more like an alternative avenue for redress for a consumer. The chargeback process gives some good consumer protections if you can show that your purchase had a "qualifying problem", such as "goods/services not received", "refund agreed but not provided", etc. Specifically for airline cancellations, you can try the "goods/services not received" path but you must be able to clearly demonstrate:

      • that you purchased goods/services

      • that the goods/services were not delivered

      • that you have tried to resolve the problem with the merchant and the merchant hasn't provided a suitable remedy.

      The key gotcha with the COVID cancellations is this "suitable remedy" - and generally speaking what the credit card companies have said is:

      • if the airline offered an alternative that the terms and conditions specifically said the airline has a right to do (e.g. rebook you or reroute you on a comparable service), then you have no claim

      • if the airline offered a voucher or a alternative flight (or any other resolution) and you accept (regardless of what's in the terms and conditions), then a suitable remedy has been found

      • if the flight cancellation is due to a government prohibition then a voucher may be a suitable remedy

      Depending on which bank/agent you speak to, they may see a voucher being offered and therefore refuse to process a chargeback for you. But again there's a nuance - some flights may have been cancelled because the government's banned them from flying (e.g. China has a rule where if an airline brings in too many infected passengers the airline's flights may be banned for a period of time), but most flights haven't actually been prohibited; it's just simply not profitable to fly them because there's low demand/too many cancellations/too many passengers (read: not airlines) have been banned from flying. A lot of people have had success pursuing chargebacks, which shows that travel agents/airlines are not necessarily having an easy time proving (1) they have a contractual right to just issue vouchers, and/or (2) that there was actually a government prohibition on flying. Others still just get lucky because airlines/travel agents are overwhelmed with chargeback requests and don't respond in time, so the customer wins automatically.

      The bottom line is that customers shouldn't just assume they have to accept vouchers - do your research first, check your contract, talk to your bank and make sure you're aware of your rights before you do accept anything. And be nice to everyone you talk to - that goes a long way.

• 

  wallet72 on 08/10/2020 - 13:07

  https://www.choice.com.au/travel/on-holidays/airlines/articl…

  and

  https://www.accc.gov.au/consumers/health-home-travel/flight-…

  also keep in mind they might try to pull the Force Majeure argument, but the success of that will depend on whether they can prove they can't service their end of the 'contract' because of circumstances outside their control (reducing seats or frequency of flights is not Force Majeure)

• 

  whooah1979 on 08/10/2020 - 14:39

  https://www.jetstar.com/au/en/covid-19-faq

  Please note, cash refunds are only available where your flight has been cancelled due to events within our control and you have not been provided an alternative flight, OR if you have been provided an alternative flight departing more than 3 hours before or after your originally scheduled departure time.

  • 

    funnysht on 08/10/2020 - 16:11

    +2

    that's their terms and conditions, but not the ACLs…

    see above arugment: no different to:

    It is like me ordering something from a store and they have no longer supply (beyond their control) and now are refusing to refund the money but give me credit.

• 

  Meho2026 on 08/10/2020 - 14:55

  +1

  I quoted and linked this with another airline and they caved in and refunded.
  https://www.accc.gov.au/consumers/health-home-travel/flight-…

  Theres a bit more too it than that though.
  The airlines own policy can not exclude the Australian Consumer law guarantees but it seems to depend on the wording of the terms and conditions.
  Qantas T&C stated that if they changed or cancelled a booking and were unable to offer a replacement flight suitable to the customer then they would be refunded. That is why they were forced to offer refunds after initially offering credit.
  You can read about that here https://www.accc.gov.au/consumers/health-home-travel/flight-….

  It looks like its going to boil down to what the Jetstar T&C were when you bought your ticket. Make sure you check what they were at the time of purchase not what the current terms are.

  • 

    funnysht on 08/10/2020 - 16:10

    seems like the accc is useles..they just say "get independent legal advice -__-

• 

  capslock on 08/10/2020 - 17:33

  +1

  Just wait until they cancel the flight. You can get your refund then.