Hans Christian Pettersen and his family will be leaving in a few days. The travel company Travellink has canceled parts of the flight and refused to refund the ticket, citing the fact that SAS has gone bankrupt.
Updated less than 2 hours ago
–
– This is quite incredible, and it has not been a fun time, says family man Hans Pettersen.
Together with his wife and daughter, he is scheduled to fly on 1 August from Gardermoen to Manila, Philippines.
They have booked the trip through the booking portal Travellink.
In June, he receives an email that their flight home has been cancelled, and that Travellink is working to find a solution.
– After the e-mail there is silence. I then do everything I can to find Travellink’s contact information, but can’t find anything. It is very difficult to get hold of them, he says.
After talking to a Norwegian Travellink number, he is told that they have nothing to do with the booking itself. They give him a new phone number that he is asked to contact.
– Then I came to a call center in India, which said they should contact me within 24 hours with a solution, he says.
Pettersen says that still nothing happened.
The family travels via SAS Star Alliance and Singapore Airways. It is the return from Singapore to Copenhagen on 21 August that Travellink believes has been cancelled.
The Consumer Council says they are seeing an increase in the number of Norwegians who do not get money back from travel agencies after canceled flights.
Wera and her husband Rodi Hübenthal waited for almost two years before they finally got help.
–Contacted the Consumer Council, SAS and Travellink
He was eventually told by Travellink that the problem is delayed because they “can’t solve the problem with SAS”.
The family then tried to contact SAS, but even after two days in the phone queue, they did not receive an answer.
Finally, on Monday this week, he received an email from Travellink saying that they want to inform him that the airline is bankrupt and that they cannot therefore offer the family a refund.
Shocked
– I was completely shocked when I received this message in writing from such a large player. Right now I feel that Travellink is behaving like a villain, says Pettersen.
Finally, Pettersen and his family got tired of waiting, and he decided to send an e-mail to SAS’ management to inform them that the trip through Travellink with SAS has been cancelled, because they claimed that the airline was bankrupt.
– After the email was sent, five minutes passed before I was called by someone in the SAS management who of course apologizes and says he will take the matter further with Travellink.
