Flying Blue, the loyalty program of Air France-KLM, will not charge refund fees if you need to cancel your award travel. This is a welcome move.
Refund Fees Waived On Flying Blue Through March 2021
Last week, I wrote about the absurd situation a pair of travelers dealt with. Due to government travel restrictions, they were forced to scuttle their trip. In order to redeposit their miles and receive credit for their taxes/fees back, however, Flying Blue demanded an upfront cancellation fee of €45 per ticket. It then warned that it could take up to six months for the credit to hit.
After publishing my story, a spokesperson from Air France reached out to let me know that Air France updated its Flying Blue refund policy:
“In order to make travel easier for customers in this challenging time, Air France and KLM loyalty program FlyingBlue is waiving the refund fees for travel until 31 March 2021 on all reward tickets.”
Also note that if you have recently paid a cancellation fee to Flying Blue, you can contact them for a refund. These retroactive refunds will not be automatic.
This is great news. It simply made no sense to collect a change fee upfront in order to refund an even larger dollar amount in taxes/fees potentially months later. I hope that if/when Flying Blue begins collecting refund fees once again, it will have worked out a way to deduct them from the taxes/fees rather than require an additional transaction.
CONCLUSION
As most of its competition suspends the collection of change and cancellation fees during these uncertain times, this is a nice move but also a competitive move. I applaud Flying Blue for suspending these fees as the world remains largely shutdown to international travel. Greater kudos for applying refunds retroactively to do those who ask.
Thanks Matt, What if I have award ticket booked for 31 May and Cancel before 31 Mar ? Will I be eligible for redeposit fee ?
Yes, you are. You just have to do it before the deadline.
I am having exactly the same problem. Now being denied twice per email.
Do you have any official AF reference I could use to make my case for an retroactive refund? Thanks!
I canceled a ticket on September 10th and was charged the fee. Called them today to see if they would reverse the redeposit fee, but they said no. Policy then was to charge it and agent wouldn’t do anything about it today. Had I waited a month to cancel, I would have saved some money.
Call again or DM me your record locator / ticket number on Twitter.
That call center in Monterrey is horrible.
@ Matthew — Now can you do something about the theft over at Air Canada?
I’ve already tried. 🙁
It’s a pity KLM don’t refund airfare, I have been waiting over 100 days and all I get is “Thank you for your patience ‘
I am done with KLM unfortunately I have vouchers I accepted to use but after that I will use another airline. Anyone want 90,000 flying blue miles?
Sure, I could be interested. What do you want for them, if anything?