To, Andreia Cabrita Guest Relations Officer Etihad Airways 4th Floor Voyager Building Chicago Avenue Manchester M90 3DQ Dear Andreia Cabrita, Subject: Complain regarding unsatisfactory refund against cancellation (RQID 496577) Greetings! I would like to register complain regarding unsatisfactory refund amount that I received from Etihad Airways against flight cancellation of our family trip to India. On 26/04/2016 we booked flight tickets with Etihad for our family trip to India through Crystal travel agents. Our two children, my wife and I were very excited for the trip as we were looking forward to meeting our aged Parents and extended family members in India after long time. But sadly on 15/09/2016 Blesson, our elder son aged 8 years was diagnosed with cancer. It was a shocking blow to our whole family and we were utterly devastated. His condition became so critical that he had to undergo severe cancer treatment for 29 weeks. When we received this sad news, we as family decided to cancel our trip as there was no way Blesson could travel. We contacted your office through email requesting for cancellation of tickets. I herby quote your email dated 22nd October 2016 (RQID 496577) sent to Anisa Gill at [protected]@swiftglobalaccounting.com addressed to my wife Mrs Macwan in relation with our first request for full refund against cancellation of our tickets to India. I have copied below content of your email for quick reference. From: Etihad Feedback [mailto:[protected]@etihad.ae] Sent: 22 October 2016 05:53 To: [protected]@swiftglobalaccounting.com Subject: Etihad Guest Relations [RQID:496577] RQID 496577 22 October 2016 Dear Mrs McWan, Thank for your writing to us regarding your booking to Ahmedabad. I am sorry to hear about your son’s current medical condition. I can appreciate that this must be a difficult time for you, and as you are unable to travel, you would like to cancel the tickets. Having retrieved your booking, I understand that tickets were issued by a travel agency under a very restricted fare. Therefore, the refund has to be done by them. However in order to review your case with our finance department, may I kindly advise you to contact your travel agent and to let us know if Mstr Blossom Parmar’s ticket is refundable and if so, how much it will be the cancellation fees. Thank you for your patience and understanding at the meantime. I look forward to hearing from you. Yours sincerely, Andreia Cabrita Guest Relations Officer Etihad Airways 4th Floor Voyager Building Chicago Avenue Manchester M90 3DQ After receiving your above response we contacted our travel agent. We contacted them through email and requested for cancellation. I have copied below my email correspondence for your quick reference. From: Anisa Gill [mailto:[protected]@swiftglobalaccounting.com] Sent: Monday, October 24, 2016 9:47 PM To: [protected]@crystaltravel.co.uk Subject: RE: BOOKING REF 442N2U AND TICKET NUMBER 607-[protected] Dear Mr Rohan, e-ticket Number : 607-[protected] Booking Ref: 4U2N2U Kindly note that my family were due to travel with your airlines on 21st Dec 2016 to 18th Jan 2017 from London to Ahmedabad, India with the above booking reference. However sadly, our son has been diagnosed with Cancer and his treatment is going on and we will be unable to travel. Please find attached letters from the hospital. I would appreciate if you could kindly consider in refunding the travel ticket costs as it is a very hard time for us and beyond our control that we are now not able to travel. I know that your colleagues at Crystal travel have notified me that there would be some cancellation charges before the refund, however I don’t mind paying around £50 but anything more than that would be a lot for me at this time as both me and my wife are unable to work due to my son’s situation and hospital runs. I would appreciate if you could kindly consider this as a special case and refund me the ticket as much as possible. Looking forward to your reply. Kind regards, Mr & Mrs Parmar In spite of my plea to consider full refund we were only given £225 per person, total refund amounted to £900 for four persons. Following is the email correspondence for your ready reference. From: Rohan - Crystal Travel [mailto:[protected]@crystaltravel.co.uk] Sent: Tuesday, October 25, 2016 4:55 PM To: 'Anisa Gill' Subject: RE: BOOKING REF 442N2U AND TICKET NUMBER 607-[protected] Dear Mr & Mrs Parmar, At the onset please accept our sincere & unreserved apology for the inconvenience caused. However, Refer to your below query please be informed that we spoke with airline and requested for full refund due to medical reason but they clearly denied on that and advise to go with fares rules. I checked the rules and it says that cancellation charges will be £250.00 per passenger. However, we could understand your problems and we Crystal Travel always come in front to help our valuable customers. So instead of charging £250.00 we will charge only £225.00 per person and rest we will pay from company admin as a good gesture. We could understand that might be it will not help you and meet your expectations but this is only the best we can do. I hope you can understand our situation and will cooperate us. For any further clarification or assistance, please feel free to reply or call me on below mentioned number. Thanks & Regards Rohan Brooks - Manager 38 Riding House Street, London, W1W 7ES Direct Tel: +[protected] Fax No: +44 (0) [protected] Ext. No 4024 Shift Timing: 9:00 – 18:00 GMT We were badly affected by diagnosis of our son and on top of it we were badly treated by your airlines on refusing to accept our request for full refund on humanitarian grounds. We in fact felt exploited! At the time of refund I accepted £900 as I was mentally, emotionally and financially broken. I had no energy to even think about things other than welfare of my son Blesson who was undergoing cancer treatment. But now after many months, while reflecting on the whole case, I and my family feel that we were really treated unfairly and inhumanly by your airlines. Etihad airways boast for excellent customer care but in our case we have totally different and bad experience. While reflecting on this whole episode of how refund for our cancellations were handled and settled, I felt that we were treated unfairly, inhumanly and inappropriately. Hence I have decided to write to you again submitting a formal complain. I feel that our family should receive full refund as we were forced to cancel tickets on health ground of our son. Please can I request you to take up this matter with your senior management and let me know your response. I hope our request will be considered favourably and we will be granted full refund. Thanking you in anticipation, Sincerely yours, Nevis Parmar