[Resolved]  Via.com And Vistara Airlines — Misinformation, delay in refund by 4 months (as of date)

Address:

Gurgaon, Haryana

I had booked a Delhi - Goa - Delhi return ticket (PNR ZYGGSL) on Vistara airlines through Via.com (Booking ID FMN19MPYB8P) trip starting 12th of March, 2015. I called via.com to cancel the Delhi to Goa leg on the 11th and traveled only the Goa to Delhi part. At the time of initiating the partial cancellation, the via.com customer service mentioned that it may take a few days for the airline to check the single sector fare and thus process the refund which was understandable. After a delay of 2 months in processing the refund payment, I started reaching out to Via.com for follow up by phone. After a few weeks of their contact center making me run around in circles, I reached out to them via email (REF000000ANMM). It was now more than 3 months since I made the cancellation. I was assured yet again the refund was being processed. Only this time, there were statedly some network issues at their end and I was asked to wait for a couple of days. I did. With still no response, I reached out again and this time I was told that it is the airline (Vistara) that is not ready to process this cancellation. They asked me to follow up with Vistara directly. I was totally at a loss since all of my interaction/transaction in this was with Via.com. This should have been their responsibility and I should not have been needing to bother with it. Still, I reached out to Vistara asking for the reason for this delay of 3+ months. They responded with an apology (no reasons) and said that they have now authorised the booking agent (via.com) to process the refund. A few days later, Vistara sent across another mail saying that they have authorised the agent to refund INR 861 i.e. only the tax amount since the fare was non-refundable. I responded with the original e-ticket which states that the fare was refundable. To this, they said that as per policy partial cancellations are treated as No-Shows and thus no fare refund. I raised with via.com the fact that I was not informed in advance about this policy. It is now about 4 months now and I'm still waiting for a resolution. If via.com was aware of this and still did not advise me accordingly at the time of cancellation, I would see this as misinformation. If via.com was not aware of this, they should still be the ones responsible for providing me proper refund. They can take it up with Vistara on an appropriate platform on their own free time. Either ways, I hold both parties responsible for the delay and harassment. Kindly advise / help.