BIRD TALK

Dear Bird Talk,

I wish to advise you of a situation that I encountered this past April. My husband had to be flown home to Toronto from Florida by air ambulance because of a recent illness. I was given four hours to prepare myself, in order to be able to fly home with him. During that time, I contacted TD Visa to cancel our flight #1229 leaving on Air Canada out of Sarasota on April 20. I was given a confirmation number and was told that because of a serious illness, the price of our tickets to Toronto would be refunded less $75.00 per ticket.

After much correspondence with Visa, I was just last week informed that we were not eligible to receive a refund. The reason was that we had not purchased our tickets in Canada. We normally arrive in October and because we do not know our plans for the upcoming six months, we only purchase a one-way ticket. Therefore, we purchased tickets in early January or February for our return flight. Apparently, this negates any refund on our tickets because we purchased them while in Florida. We paid for them in Canadian funds and they were bought on our Canadian credit card.

I felt that it was important that your readers understand this policy and, hopefully, will not experience what we went through. We felt that we had good reason to cancel our tickets but apparently, unless you purchase a return ticket while in Canada, you do not qualify for a refund.

Sincerely,

Beatrice Sage

Response:
Ed: This is a new one for us. I would go directly to Air Canada for your refund, as they are the people who have your money. Your location of purchase should have no bearing on the refund status, especially when cancelled for medical reasons. If you were travelling with Medipac, send me the bills and we will take care of it.