Expiring Pandemic Travel Credits: What Are the Rules? | The Canadian News

In late 2019, Cheryl Winton and her family made plans for a trip to Fort Myers, Florida.

When the pandemic hit, that trip, planned for spring 2020, was cancelled, just as travel was halted for millions of people around the world at the time.

The $1,700 Winton paid to FlightHub, a carrier she had used multiple times, was not refunded, but a credit was offered for future travel on WestJet.

A year later, Winton and his family still didn’t feel comfortable boarding a plane for the Sunshine State, so they didn’t book any new flights. The travel credit was due on October 25, 2021.

“It was not safe to travel,” Winton said in a television interview outside her home in Alton, Ontario.

She says she tried multiple times to get a response from FlightHub and WestJet on whether flight credits would be extended again given the rise in Omicron cases and the federal government’s request that Canadians postpone non-essential travel out of the country.

“It was a complete dodge,” Winton said, referring to his efforts to get a response from travel companies.

The rules governing travel credits vary from province to province.

“It’s probably been the number one complaint in the pandemic,” said Richard Smart, executive director of the Travel Industry Council of Ontario, or TICO.

The organization administers the province’s travel industry law and governs around 2,400 registered travel wholesalers and retailers in Ontario.

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“We put a one-year minimum requirement on those coupons,” Smart said, adding that some registered travel organizations have extended them to two or more years. Some travel credits did not expire, Smart said.

“In most cases…they have extended those credits. It’s often in their best interest to extend credit so the consumer will come back to them, Smart said.

While the TICO does not have the jurisdiction to require individual airlines to extend credits for a specified period of time, consumers who have purchased travel with its vacation subsidiary, such as Air Canada Vacations, Sunwing Vacations or WestJet Vacations, is a different story.

“If the consumer has dealt with the vacation arm of those airlines, we often facilitate those discussions and go back to the TICO agency and they work with their airlines. We have a good track record of extending their vouchers,” Smart said.

But TICO cannot require extensions beyond a year, Smart said, adding that extensions are made on the basis of goodwill.

In Winton’s case, TICO was unable to intervene because FlightHub is registered in Quebec and governed by a different provincial regulator.

When Global News contacted FlightHub, the company almost immediately agreed to extend Winton’s credit.

“The customer now has until March 31, 2022 to rebook a new trip,” the company told Global News in an email.

“We have also made a special request to the airline to further extend the deadline beyond this date,” the spokesperson wrote.

Winton, contacted directly by Westjet shortly after the Global News interview, said the airline assured her she could get an additional 13-month extension beyond the March 31 deadline.

Consumers facing expiring credits are encouraged to write to their travel agent, tour operator or airline to request an extension if they are still not comfortable traveling.

Smart said that with a high volume of calls from consumers, it’s best to avoid using the phone and instead use a travel provider’s online options.

“Yes, it will take a little longer to get back to them, but it’s certainly better than waiting six, seven, eight, nine hours on a call waiting to get through.”