This past November I booked 3 tickets on Continental's website for an April trip to San Juan. On Dec 14th noticed online that the flights were gone; when logging into our reservation, noticed our flights had been changed from the nonstop flights that no longer existed to connecting flights that would not work due to our Cruise times. I called Continental and was told I would be given full refund no penalties, expect credit to credit card in 2-3 business days. By Dec 18th, no credit yet, called and was told it was 5-7 business days (not 2-3 as originally told). Today is the 26th, no credit yet (it has been 9 business days not counting holiday). Called and was told that the refund "processed on Dec 23rd" and should show up on our card anytime now.??? Credit card company verified that no credit has been submitted as od today, Dec 26th. Is it time to make a stop payment on my credit card? This is ridiculous. We are talking $1200.

(In the interim we canceled the cruise since we can't get decent flights and the cruiseline processed that credit within a day) What is wrong with Continental?? Really makes me re-think EVER doing business with them again.

Thanks for any advice. I feel I am getting the runaround.

 

Who have you been talking to at CO? They have a separate number for accounting/refunds that will actually be able to help you while the reservations folks won't really know much of anything about what is going on.

 

What's the panic about? Give it a few days. If CO said it was processed on the 23rd - and the 24th and 25th are reduced/zero business days - then take into account the holiday period. You already have CO's promise to refund the payment....what other possible outcome would disputing the credit card charge get you?

The first thing the credit card company asks when you dispute a charge is "have you tried to work this out with the merchant already?" And your response would be "yes, they've agreed to refund my money."

 

Please foillow the discussion as the thread moves to our Continental Air forum. Thanks, Ocn Vw 1K, Moderator, TravelBuzz.

 

Patience, my son.

 

I'm running into a similar thing, but instead of refunding a reservation, they applied payment to credit card instead of to my travel certificate as was supposed to...

Been 2 weeks now, and STILL NO REFUND...

 

CO is actually one of the quicker airlines in terms of refund processing. Outside of refunds when they had the IAH hurricane this summer, they take 7-10 business days. It goes in some queue, and then they seem to batch post the refunds.

If it gets to be over 3 weeks (not counting holidays), it's probably messed up.

 

We have a merchant account, and even if we put through a refund the day after a charge was made, it is often a week or more before the customer sees the refund. Charges go through almost instantly, it seems. Our merchant account is charged very quickly, but the delay until the customer's account is finally reimbursed is excessively lengthy, IMO. It seems to be especially bad with debit cards, and Visa/Mastercards. Amex refunds seem to go through very quickly in contrast.

Anyway, it may not be Continental's holdup. On one particular transaction I remember, the customer's bank finally made the refund available to the customer six business days after we had authorized the refund. I spent quite a bit of time with our credit card processor on the phone trying to figure out what was going on, and ultimately I got the explanation that refunds don't follow the same processing as charges do, and that the bank that issued the customer's credit/debit card has to authorize the acceptance of the refund, which they do in batches, often days after they get them.

 

As if we needed another reason not to use debit cards.

 

Why do they have this problem? To make more money. They get the interest from the customer's higher balance for a week, plus they earn interest on their extra money. A double win. I'm sure the reward for a credit card company employee that fixes the delays would be termination.

 

If I cancel a ticket on CO within the 24 hour window, the authorization never becomes a charge. A refundable ticket, however, will take anywhere from 5 to 7 business days or 7 to 10 calendar days, whichever comes first.

 

This is typically true except my last Refund within 24 hours happened 4 minutes before the cut off on an international ticket and thus I think it caused some problems with the processing times. Anyways, the refund came through today so I am happy.

 

I recently purchased an A class ticket and was not able to travel, however I did check in online. I totally forgot about asking for a refund until I checked my CC statement. When I called the refund desk, the agent told me the ticket had no value since I never cancelled prior to departure. After telling her the ticket was refundable, she argued back with me that this has always been the policy. I told her to show me where in the fare rules it states that. She returned to the call and told me it was on the website. After asking to speak to her supervisor, she stated she was the supervisor.

She did state that she would do me a one time favor and issue me a travel credit for that amount. I told her she wasn't do me any favors and I wanted a refund. At this point, she was very snappish. I asked her again to show me where it states a refundable fare cancels after departure. After failing to, she patches me in a 3 way call with web support. The web support agent pulled up my ticket and immediately stated that the was a first class ticket and refundable. The other agent abruptly hung up. However, this agent lectured me about not cancelling the ticket and how other passengers needed my seat.

Funny how the refund desk agent had problems handling a refund while web support was able to process the refund with no problems.

the refund posted to my account in less than a week.

 

I thought an unused refundable ticket becomes a non-refundable used ticket at the point of check-in (or departure) for the leg you're flying unless you cancel the check-in status and the reservation by the departure time.

I'm actually surprised that CO honored your refund request at the time the charge appeared on your credit card statement. It sounds to me like you were very very lucky and got an agent who bent the rules for you.

 

I've never heard such a rule from CO. I know that B6 treats their refundable tickets that way, but not CO.