Q: I booked a flight from Salt Lake City to Geneva for my husband through Booking.com. The flight was on United Airlines. United canceled the flight the night before and offered us a refund. It sent the refund to Booking.com three months later.
When I called Booking.com, I just got the runaround and was told that they will “look into it.” I have called multiple times, and all they tell me is that the refund takes 7-10 business days and can take up to 14 days. But it’s been six months!
No one can provide me with any further information. The Booking.com call center is in India, and I feel like no one understands my issue. I’ve tried multiple times to reach someone in the United States who could help me.
The last time I called Booking.com, a representative promised to submit a request to United. But United also gave me very little information, except that it sent the refund to Booking.com. Can you help me get my $1,751 back please?
— Maxine Biggs, Herriman, Utah
A: United should have sent the money quickly to Booking.com, which should have then passed it along to you. The process should have taken no more than a week.
So, what happened? I have to be honest — I have never made excuses for the airlines and their proxies, and I have no intention of starting now. There is just no good reason for such a delay.
The Department of Transportation requires that refunds be made promptly. It defines “prompt” as being within 7 business days if you paid by credit card and within 20 days if you paid by cash or check. And it applies these rules to airlines and online travel agencies like Booking.com. You could have (and probably should have) let the DOT know about this lapse.
And you also could have applied some pressure to United and Booking.com. A brief, polite email sent to one of the customer service managers might have helped. I list their names, numbers and emails on my consumer advocacy site, Elliott.org.
As a side note, I think the companies have all of this backward. If you reserve a ticket through Booking.com, then Booking.com — not United — should be responsible for getting your money back to you within a week. If United owes Booking.com for your ticket, that’s between the two of them.
This is one of the strangest refund cases to land on my desk, and our advocacy team worked hard to figure out what had happened. But we finally reached the right person at Booking.com, who explained the situation:
United never issued a ticket refund. Instead, for reasons that are not entirely clear, it exchanged your ticket for another one, which means that Booking.com lost control of the ticket. A Booking.com agent then requested a refund, which apparently confused United’s system because a refund had already been initiated.
United told you that it had sent the money to Booking.com, but Booking.com could not find it. After my team and I reached out, Booking.com connected with United, found your money, and finally refunded your ticket.
Christopher Elliott is the founder of Elliott Advocacy (elliottadvocacy.org), a nonprofit organization that helps consumers solve their problems. Email him at chris@elliott.org or get help by contacting him at elliottadvocacy.org/help.
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