Air India review: Refund not received

I had a booking for a return journey from London Heathrow to Kochi on 28th march 2023 and the return on 3rd may 2023 from Kochi to London which was meant to be a direct journey. Few months before my travel date Air India has brought changes to the itinerary and both my flights were changed as connected ones through Delhi and Mumbai.

I had contacted the customer service for a change so that I can fly directly from London Gatwick to Kochi. However I was advised that no seats were available within 2 weeks or I will have to pay an extra fees for the change if I want to choose a date before or after 2 weeks of my scheduled journey. I was not happy to pay extra and was unfortunate to make any changes and managed to travel my outbound journey via the connection route and had a horrible time in the rush unnecessarily in the Delhi airport and had to go through an extra security check.

Taking into consideration all the mess that happened to me while travelling towards India I decided to change my flight and get a direct one instead even if I had to stay like extra weeks in India or had to pay an extra charge and contacted the customer care again. The customer care assistant who helped me again made a mistake and booked me in on a different date than what I asked for. I made the payment of 50,000 INR which they said will be charged since I am making a change in my travel date and completed the application online without knowing this until a confirmation was send to me and realized that a mistake had happened from the side of your customer service assistant. They had basically booked in for may instead of April. I was not able to make it on the date they mistakenly booked as there was a one month gap in-between and had to change it to the date I was actually looking for. For that they asked me to again pay like around 1 lakh Indian rupees to and advised the initial money paid for the change (ie, 50,000) will be automatically refunded.

I was desperate about the situation and was not happy to pay anymore and made a fresh booking with a different airline from Kochi to London. I had phoned back and asked for a refund for my inbound journey but haven’t received. I wish to let you know about this experience and wish to claim a refund as I think you have the complete responsibility for the situation.

I had booked my flight 1 year prior as I was not able to wait until the last moment and afford a huge amount which was completely out of my control and I had to pay a big amount to a different airline while booking my flight back at the last moment as I had no other option.

I assure you can have a look on the call recordings to make sure whatever I have mentioned is right and please do the needful so that I get the amount I owe from you.