htmlOn August 10, in the ticket hall of Hangzhou East Railway Station, passengers who canceled their trip due to a typhoon were queuing up to refund their tickets. Photo provided by Visual China Ms. Zhang, a citizen of Hangzhou, originally planned to take her daughter from Hangzhou to Taipei for a trip during the summer vacation. She previously booked a round-trip air ticket through the Fliggy platform. The outbound flight was flight CA149 of China Airlines on August 10, and the return flight was flight BR758 of Taiwan Evergreen Company on August 14. Because of the arrival of typhoon "Lekima", this trip was ruined. What's worse is that when you return the ticket, the 1,293 yuan ticket price could only be refunded 3 yuan.
Ms. Zhang felt extremely angry and wronged about this - it was obviously the "burden" of the typhoon, why do consumers have to bear the losses themselves?
Chapter Ms.’s ticket refund page.
flight out due to typhoon cancellation
return flight ticket price is almost completely lost
. Coincidentally, Ms. Li (pseudonym) also encountered a similar incident due to this typhoon. As early as July this year, she booked a flight ticket from Shenzhen to Shanghai on the "Zhixing" APP, and planned to have a party with her friends in Shanghai last weekend. According to the travel needs, China Southern Airlines flight CZ3568 was chosen for the trip, and the return was flight MU5361 of China Eastern Airlines at 9 pm on Sunday.
html In the middle of the night on August 9, Ms. Li received news that China Southern Airlines flight CZ3568 was suspended. After that, she quickly refunded the ticket and checked out, but during this process, Ms. Li suddenly discovered that since the return ticket was not in the suspended flight sequence, the ticket loss of 867 yuan for one-way tickets may reach 747 yuan., of course, Ms. Li was unwilling to give up in the face of almost "total loss". She contacted the platform customer service and China Eastern Airlines as soon as possible, but was told that if the trip was cancelled, the handling fee must be charged according to the normal process. "According to the regulations of China Eastern Airlines, the losses are the same whether it is a change or a refund. It's really depressing. It's not that I don't want to go, it's impossible to go." The reporter from
called the China Eastern Airlines customer service hotline. Staff responded: "For passengers who booked flights in China Eastern Airlines during the typhoon period, we will make reminders and serve passengers according to the refund policy issued; but if it is outside the typhoon impact period and we only receive orders for normal flights on one-way flights, we can only refund and change according to regulations."
Staff of the Complaints and Legal Affairs Department of Zhejiang Provincial Consumer Protection Committee Xu Xin said after understanding the incident: "The problems encountered by Ms. Zhang and Ms. Li can be attributed to the same type. Mainly when choosing air tickets, two different airlines were selected for round trips. The impact of force majeure such as typhoons was only a flight itinerary of a certain airline, so the other airline was not sure about the purpose of the passengers' boarding; from a legal perspective, the airlines that provide return flights in the case need to fulfill relatively small reminder obligations."
Ms. Li's refund and change return tickets also have a huge loss fee. The train ticket for departure from
was suspended due to typhoon
. The return ticket was charged a 10% handling fee
. Mr. Ma's family in Cixi, Ningbo was originally scheduled to go to a friend's house in Shanghai for a wedding banquet on August 11. They planned to stay for one night and return on August 12 the next day.
I heard of a typhoon and was worried that the Hangzhou Bay Cross-Sea Bridge would be closed. He and his family gave up the self-driving method and booked a round-trip high-speed rail ticket in advance. "I originally thought that there would be no problem in booking the high-speed train at noon on August 11, but at 3:45 pm on the 10th, we received the information that the train G7510 was suspended from the train. Our tickets and hotels were all booked on Ctrip . At that time, there were only 15 minutes left before the lossless check-out, so I had to check out and refund the ticket. Unexpectedly, when I refunded the ticket, I suddenly found that the ticket ticket on August 12 was not in the suspension sequence, and I had to bear the 10% handling fee for the ticket refund myself." Mr. Ma was surprised, "The train ticket booking information was shown in the backend of 12306. Since the trip was suspended, why can't the return ticket be refunded together? Typhoons are force majeure, why are they just refunded the trip all, and the return trip will be deducted?" Although the handling fee was not high, Mr. Ma felt that the money was "unfairly wronged". He then consulted with Ctrip and 12306, but for 3 hours, 12306 could not connect to the manual customer service. Considering that the ticket loss was not high, Ctrip customer service agreed to directly compensate Mr. Ma's losses.Ctrip responded to this reporter: "With the refund policy, Ctrip will strictly implement the relevant policies of the railway department. If you cannot fully refund, as the platform party, Ctrip will provide appropriate emotional compensation to the guests."
The Complaints and Legal Affairs Department of the Zhejiang Provincial Consumer Protection Committee also put forward a view: "Article 117 of the Contract Law points out that 'If the contract cannot be performed due to force majeure, the liability will be partially or completely exempted according to the impact of force majeure, except as otherwise provided by law.' The typhoon clearly falls under the category of force majeure; at the same time, the ticket information booked by each passenger is the railway The departments are all recorded. So from the perspective of corporate social responsibility, first of all, we recommend that 12306 should fulfill the obligation of reminder, and secondly, it is necessary to provide passengers with a more reasonable and humane refund plan based on the principles of fairness and rationality. "
"defying travel" in typhoon weather
These common sense can help you stop loss in time
will inevitably encounter accidents when traveling. If you encounter similar force majeure again, how should you avoid the biggest loss as a consumer?
Regarding the issue of air tickets, aviation industry insiders have two suggestions for your reference: if the conditions permit, especially during the summer typhoons and thunderstorms, try to purchase round-trip tickets from the same airline as much as possible. If a certain flight is cancelled due to force majeure, the airline is also obliged to provide you with policies such as whether to refund or change another flight or full refund. The reporter also received a positive response from the customer service staff of China Eastern Airlines.
The second is to purchase insurance, the most common one is "Air and Iran Air Delay Combination Insurance", which can recover some of the losses.
When the typhoon "Lekima" hit, it happened to last weekend. Some passengers also had problems such as booking a hotel that could not be cancelled, or that they could not check in in time due to the impact of the trip, and that the hotel could not be postponed.
Ctrip said that if both the air tickets and hotels are booked on Ctrip and the hotel cannot be checked in on the same day due to flight changes, the hotel can be cancelled for free. In addition, Ctrip has also launched a "stair cancellation" policy with nearly 200,000 hotels: specifically, it can be cancelled for free before 17:00 10 days before check-in date; 10% of the room fee will be deducted before 18:00 on the day of check-in date; it cannot be cancelled after 18:00 on the day of check-in. This not only takes care of the guests' feelings, but also takes into account the reality that the hotel suffers losses due to temporary check-out.
The Complaints and Legal Affairs Department of Zhejiang Provincial Consumer Protection Committee gave suggestions - when booking hotels, try to choose cancelled rooms. "As far as the domestic market is concerned, the price difference between the cancelled and the uncancelled room types on the platform is not large, and it costs more to refund and change and stop loss when you cannot move in."
(original title "The outbound ticket is cancelled due to typhoon, and the return ticket is only refunded by 3 yuan", reporter Ye Chen, Zheng Jianjin, editor Li Ru)
