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I booked a flight for my parents with Air India for international travel to/from India and USA. The travel date is in June from India to USA and the return date to India is later on in November. Due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and health safety concerns and due to the fact that both of them are senior citizens, we have decided to cancel the trip.

When I visit Air India Website to manage my booking, it throws an error saying that:

Sorry, We are unable to retrieve your booking as one or more of your flights may not be confirmed, please call our contact centre

I tried calling them for two straight days but unable to get anyone on call. I left them an email but there is no response.

I booked the travel using Chase Sapphire Reserve. Is there any way I can dispute the credit card charges?

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    You can always dispute the charges. What's unknown is whether the issue will be resolved in your favor. – Bob Baerker Apr 24 '20 at 14:01
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If the flight is cancelled by the airline, you will have a solid case for a chargeback (non-delivery of the goods or services purchased is always a good reason). The problem becomes if you can't get any information out of them for the next month or more, and then the flight goes as scheduled (but you never received confirmation that it would).

You should contact both Chase and Chase's provider for the Sapphire Reserve travel insurance benefit and let them know you have a problem which you are trying to resolve with the merchant. In the ideal situation, prior to actually starting a chargeback Chase may send Air India a demand for documentation supporting the charge, which will provide you the positive or negative confirmation that the Air India website isn't giving you, or if Air India chooses not to respond they will be in trouble with the bank already.

If Air India comes back saying the flight will go on as scheduled and the tickets are confirmed, your life gets more difficult (since your parents have chosen not to fly). In that case you'll need to make a claim through the travel insurance benefit, which is a messy process that repeatedly requires just one more piece of documentation (not new information, just the same information on a different and more official document).

If the US and/or Indian governments are recommending cancelling travel in that timeframe, you should end up covered by the insurance. If all the officials are saying that by June it will be safe to travel, you might not be able to get a refund.

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  • Right now it looks like Air India has cancelled all the international flights. I looked up on their website as well as google flights and I don't find any available future flights anymore. What would happen if the airline goes bankrupt and they do not provide any flights? I believe chase would cover it then? – qrius Apr 24 '20 at 17:18
  • Note that attempting a chargeback, regardless of whether it succeeds, may result in being flagged as a troublesome customer by the airline and/or by any fraud screening systems used by the airline. They may refuse service to you in the future. – Brian Apr 28 '20 at 16:58
  • @Brian: That doesn't seem to be a problem -- the airline tried to STEAL YOUR MONEY once already, why would you even think of doing business with them again? – Ben Voigt Apr 28 '20 at 22:30
  • @BenVoigt: If OP believes that this issue was due to incompetence rather than malice AND the airline is still OP's preferred choice for future travel, OP may decide that future business with the airline is important enough to justify eating the loss. – Brian Apr 29 '20 at 13:27

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