Recently in Shanghai, a woman purchased three international airline tickets for a total of 15,696 yuan. The day after the purchase, she requested a refund due to a change in her itinerary. However, despite the flight being almost a month away, the website stated that the ticket price could not be refunded, with only 738 yuan being reimbursed for taxes, leaving about 95% of the ticket price non-refundable.
According to Red Star News, the woman, Ms. Chen, bought three Etihad Airways economy cabin tickets through the online travel service platform Ctrip. Her plan was to return to China from the Middle East on October 21.
The day after the purchase, when she applied for a refund, she found out that each of the three passengers could only receive 246 yuan in tax refunds, totaling 738 yuan. The remaining 14,958 yuan of the ticket price was non-refundable.
Ms. Chen believed that with nearly a month until the flight, the airline still had time to resell the seats, making it difficult for her to accept a loss of over 90% of the ticket price. She stated that she did not notice the non-refundable ticket notice when purchasing the tickets and only found out about the partial tax refund when applying for a refund.
Ctrip customer service stated that the refund policy is determined by the airline, and the platform has no authority to waive fees. They can only assist consumers in coordinating with the airlines and do not charge additional refund service fees.
Etihad Airways customer service mentioned that these tickets were sold through a third-party channel, and refunds must be processed through the original ticketing platform. Despite multiple negotiations, Ms. Chen did not receive any other refund options.
Ctrip also mentioned that the refund policy pops up on the page before payment is made, and the order details indicate that the ticket price cannot be refunded before or after the flight, with only 246 yuan in tax refund per person. Ms. Chen stated that she did not pay attention to these details when purchasing the tickets.
In July of this year, another consumer purchased a 15,159 yuan ticket from China International Airlines through Ctrip. They applied for a refund three days before the flight and received only 432 yuan in return.
After the incident was exposed by the media, Ctrip compensated the consumer for the 14,727 yuan loss, citing special reasons for cancellation guarantee. However, they stated that this was a specific case handling, and the general refund policy remained unchanged.
Data released by Sina’s consumer complaint platform “Black Cat Complaints” shows that in the first half of this year, the platform received nearly 27,000 complaints related to airports and airlines, with over 13,000 involving high refund and rescheduling fees.
Currently, there is no unified standard for ticket refund and change fees in China’s aviation industry, and each airline’s rules vary based on factors such as ticket price category and refund time.
Professor Su Haopeng from the School of Law at the University of International Business and Economics previously expressed that the refund fee is considered a penalty clause in legal terms, and the amount should be proportional to the actual losses incurred by passengers when canceling tickets.
Associate Professor Zhu Wei from China University of Political Science and Law stated that even if the platform displays relevant warnings, the efficacy of the terms may still be questioned if they exclude consumers’ main rights.