Refund Service - not!
 

After wrangling with Air Canada over a refund that was a result of them cancelling a flight, I am of the opinion that there is a definite corporate strategy to make refunds as byzantine, painful and drawn out as possible.

They know that unless there is big $$ involved, many people will just give up.....more $$ in their coffers...

Shameful though.

Small claims is easy and will cause them the inconvenience of having to fight it. Take it all the way... what is the downside? You might win and get your money and costs... if you don't, you will certainly have caused them problems by filing a claim.

Refunds or Institutionalized theft?
 

I think there is a fine line between deliberately designing a corporate refund strategy to work against the consumer, and theft.

They have any number of 1-800 contact numbers to part you from your money. But if you want a refund, you'll have to pay on your nickel to phone them up.

And guess what, you never get a real body - just a recording saying they're busy assisting others. At least they were smart enough not to say that they couldn't answer your call 'due to abnormally high volume of calls (complaints)'...lol

Recommendation
 

Please, visit airlinebaggagecomplaints.org Baggage is one of the areas which passengers value after ontime flights.
I would lik to get in contact with AirCanada to explain my project

Gustavo A Varon

Hi,

If I'm not mistaken, Air Canada does in fact give you the option to email (which arguably is a no-cost option) in your refund requests.. and also gives you the option to email (again, for most people a no-cost option) their refunds department for status updates.

The only situation I can see, based on what they list, where you would have to incur some level of 'hard' costs is IF you need to return to AC some form of paper tickets or the like-- then you'll need to expend the cost to mail, via whatever service you wish, those paper documents.

Outside of that, as I see it, they don't force you at all to use "your nickel to phone them up." unless of course you're counting the very minimal incremental cost of internet access to sending that one or two email(s) to AC--- but again, I suspect for most (not all, but most) people, they have either unlimited internet access or the like which does not incur add any incremental costs for this type of email.

http://www.aircanada.com/en/customercare/refunds.html