I have been flying internationally for the past 10 years and have never been so hassled as I was after booking my first Air India flight last week. Our British Airways flight was cancelled due to the volcanic eruptions and we needed to travel urgently, so as Air India was the only one available - we went ahead and booked it. Prior to the booking we called their customer service to check if they were indeed operating their flights - which we got an affirmation of.
On the day of our flight we left for the Chicago airport and en route decided to call to make sure flight is on time. When we called the Customer Service, we were informed that the flight has been cancelled. To make sure that was correct we called back and spoke to another agnet who then said the same. So we went on to change our booking to the next available flight which was 3 days later.
Once we got home, we found Etihad had seats available for a day later, so we went ahead and booked on that thinking Air India would cancel and refund since they had cancelled the flight due to technical problems.
What happened next was simply harassment. We were on hold for 90 minutes of the 125 minute call. The first person we spoke to said that the flight was not cancelled and had been re-instated. We live 3 hours out of Chicago so there was no way to make it. Customer service would not refund us and said we had to go to the city office to get a refund. And since it was the weekend the city office was closed and we were flying out on Sunday. So by the time we would land in Mumbai the Air India booking would show us as "No show" and we would not get a refund! WOW.
So we asked for a supervisor, who was more interested in finding out WHO told us that the flight was re-instated instead of finding a solution.
After a lot of back and forth she changed our booking to 3 months later so that once we were back at home in Mumbai we could go to the Air India office and get a refund, which I’m worried about now. I never thought such a simple thing could be so complicated leave it to Air India to do so.
If you can make a booking - you should be able to refund as well. Very quick on taking our money but not so in giving it back. Try not to fly Air India even if you get a cheaper ticket or a great deal. The horrible experience will kill the joy.
I will not fly Air India even if it’s free.