How do I get a refund following the cancellation of a flight due to the Wow Air bankruptcy?
Like many, we had the bad surprise to see our flight cancelled following the bankruptcy of the company Wow Air.
We had to leave exactly one week after the announcement of the bankruptcy
We were lucky enough to be able to buy other tickets so as not to cancel our stay (with a stopover, a departure at dawn – not boreal– and twice as expensive…).
No refund is to be expected from the company. It had a huge debt. The liquidator is going to sell the assets and there is a priority order of creditors. In France, it is the employees who have priority, then the State, … the customers are often last on the list. I imagine that it is the same logic in Iceland.
So I contacted the insurance company of the credit card with which we bought the plane tickets (a Mastercard).
The number to call is the assistance number on your card.
For the call to be effective, you must have with you :
- Your credit card number
- Planned departure date
- The price of the plane ticket
My contact person was aware of Wow Air‘s bankruptcy. First information, flight cancellations due to bankruptcies (or strikes) aren’t supported.
Only are supported :
- An impediment due to a health problem
- An impediment following a serious event (death of a relative, burglary, fire, …)
- Expenses related to a missed connection following a flight delay.
The good news is that it has been decided (I don’t really know at what level) that exceptionally, the cancellations related to the bankruptcy of Wow Air would be taken care of.
In the bad news department, only the ticket of the credit card owner can be refunded. In other words, my ticket is eligible for reimbursement and not Anh’s.
I was quickly picked up on the phone and I received an e-mail to open a “claim file” right away.
The following supporting documents are required:
- Bank statement showing the amount of the payment
- Wow Air’s order confirmation email
- The purchase invoice (–> I don’t have it, I hope the confirmation mail will be enough)
- Wow Air’s certificate of cancellation (available on the Wow Air website, I have saved it here in case the Wow Air website disappears)
- A sworn statement attesting to the facts (you can download an example of the letter I wrote here).
All documents are to be sent by e-mail. The repayment period announced to me is 10 / 15 days.
Fingers crossed 🙂
EDIT of April 11, 2019: I have been reimbursed for my ticket a fortnight after sending my file. The procedure was finally simple and fast, it is a pleasure even if the refund concerns only one ticket out of two and that obviously, no compensation is possible regarding additional costs.
At the same time, I contacted my bank (CIC) to initiate a procedure called “chargeback” which consists in denouncing a transaction in order to obtain a refund.
I had to insist a little bit because my counsellor didn’t seem to know this procedure.
In the end, she asked me to put together a file similar to the one Mastercard had.
After 10 days, I was reimbursed 100% of the amount, damn good news!
As a result, with Mastercard + CIC, I obtained a 150% refund, which allows me to compensate a little bit for the extra expenses related to the purchase of plane tickets at the last moment.
