Akbar Travels — Provided only partial refund even though promised full refund

Srikant2015

Jan 6, 2022

Website:

www.akbartravels.com

1. I booked an Etihad flight ticket through travel agency "Akbar Travels, India" to travel from Trivandrum, India to Toronto, Canada on 24th March 2020.

2. The flight got cancelled due to covid as india imposed travel ban on 22 March 2020.

3. I waited for some months but the travel ban was not lifted and I wanted to cancel my ticket. I reached the travel agency "Akbar Travels, India" to cancel my ticket and they told me that as per etihad's policy i won't get the full refund if i cancel the ticket before 1 year from the original travel date.

4. Without making a further fuss I patiently waited for 1 year and I raised a request with my travel agency "Akbar Travels, India" and confirmed my ticket cancellation on 25th March 2021 (Exactly 1 year from the original travel date). I was given a timeline to get my refund within 90-120 days starting from 25th March 2021.

5. I made lots of follow ups with akbar travels for the next few months and I was constantly getting the response that Etihad is processing my refund. This went on for another 5 months and I got my refund on 1st september 2021 (After a long delay of 160 days from the day I confirmed the cancellation of my ticket).After all this suffering i didn't get a full refund. I paid 1, 16, 912.00 for my ticket and I got a refund of only INR 1, 10, 520.00. When i reached the travel agency "Akbar Travels, India" why they reduced INR 6392.00, this is what they said
"Kindly be informed as checked the deduction of K3 Tax is from the airline and not from Akbar Travels. Also note the delay in the process of refund is due to high volumes of refund request at the airline's end as well as our end due to on going situations.Further please note the statement “From 01st Sep 2021, K3 tax is non-refundable for those tickets issued in FY[protected]" is applicable for all the new refund request"

6. I got in touch with etihad and they said they had already issued the full refund to akbar travels in july itself. So it is very clear that akbar travel was lying all the time and and cheating me

I was supposed to get the full refund within 90-120 days from the day i raised refund request (24th March 2021). So even if we count 120 days from the refund request date it would be July 22, 2021. So i should have been getting the full refund within this date but i didnt get it. Instead of that Akbar travels gave me partial refund exactly on Sept 1, 2021 and said that all refunds from 1st Sept 2021, K3 tax is non-refundable and gave me partial refund.
This is pure cheating, unethical and unprofessional.
Akbar travels delayed the process, delayed the refund and now coming back and saying that I should be paying for mistakes made by Akbar travels. This looks more like a scam

Pls refund my full amount.

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Akbar Travels customer support has been notified about the posted complaint.

Verified Support

Jan 07, 2022

Akbar Travels Customer Care's response AT[protected]

Please find the attached mailer from Etihad Airline where airline had mentioned that full refund will be eligible if refund request is submitted before 30 Sep 2020. Later after the cut-off date, full refund request is raised then K3 TAX will be non-refundable.

Attached is the passenger's mail where we have received refund request after 30 Sep 2020 due to which K3 TAX amount has been forfeited by the airline.

Regards,
Team AT

Verified Support

Jan 07, 2022

Jan 08, 2022

Updated by Srikant2015 1. If that is the case then why was i send an email on July 22nd 2020 that "Also note there is no full refund option as of now from the airline.However the refund can only be processed once the ticket expires (ie 1 year from date of issue)". See attached image. Why you didnt clearly mention or inform me about the same

2. If that is the case then why did you send me email saying that "FULL REFUND requests without Cancellation Fee will be accepted only after 12 months from the 1st cancelled flight in the itinerary i.e 24 MAR 2021." on December 2020. See attached image

3. Then why did u reply me "Yes" on dec 2020, when i asked "So that means I have to wait till 24th march 2021 and then only raise cancellation request to get full refund?". See attached image.

Can you show me one email where you informed me about this notice that you send now. Whenever i was asking about refund you were always giving me answer that full refund request should only raised after 1 year from the travel date. If this was the case i wouldn't have waited this long to cancel it. I would have cancelled it july 2020 itself and would have earned some interest if i got money then itself. Here neither i was informed about this condition, neither i was given full refund and also i lost the interest i could have earned if i would received the amount 1 year back.