J's Travel Notes

Refunds for unused tickets or credits (in particular Expedia)

I have discovered the best way to get an airline or agent to refund a ticket or credit during Covid is to lodge a dispute through your credit card.

Ring the bank and state that you have not received the service for which you have paid. It may take a while, maybe a month or 2 but eventually they will have no choice and refund your credit card. At present there doesn’t seem to be any time limit on when you can lodge a dispute. It used to be 3 months, but I recently did it almost 12 months after the transaction/purchase.

I would definitely recommend against using Expedia or any of their other companies such as Wotif, as they take no responsibility for the booking and consistently and stridently claim this is the airline’s issue as the payment was made to the airline and not Expedia. This is correct and totally fine until something is changed and no one takes responsibility.

You will need to lodge a dispute against the actual transaction, which in my case was Singapore Airlines.

As you can imagine, nothing to say right now but we are thinking about travel within Australia once we can leave the house!

If you want to travel to Europe next year now is the time to book.

Today I found Qatar flights to Dublin for Perth in April for less that $1100!

Make sure you check the web for Qatar promo codes. You can almost always find a code for a 10% discount if you book directly through Qatar.

I recently booked some flights to Melbourne through Wotif. I booked a Qantas flight to Melbourne and a Virgin ticket for the return flight.

Due to a change in plans I needed to move these flights. I rang Wotif and they told me I could cancel the flights at no cost as it was within 12 hours of the booking.

I couldn’t believe it! I cancelled the flights and rebooked them for the next day at no cost.

If I had booked these flights through the airlines the changes would have cost me close to $400.

This is standard Wotif policy and they answered my call within a couple of minutes. The service was fantastic and I would definitely use them again.

I was reading the other day and a website suggested that the best time to book the cheapest flights is 18 weeks prior to your travel date. I’ve looked around and it seems to work.

Don’t forget to check Wotif and Expedia for comparison fares. Although I prefer to book directly through an airline I recently saved $300 a ticket booking the same flights through Expedia.

Also, sometimes booking a flight and hotel through these sites can also save you some money.

Around the world airfares.

As you can’t book these tickets online you have to go through an agent. I prefer not to book this way but there are some good people out there.

Roundabout Travel in Adelaide seem to offer good deals but if you use someone like Flight Centre the fares can vary depending upon the person you speak to.

Lufthansa usually have some very good around the world deals.

If you want to delay payment, STA offer a layby offer for $39 a ticket with $100 deposit. This needs to be paid 10 weeks before departure.

I would advise you speak to a few agents to get the best option for you.