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Back in the first lockdown we postponed a stag do to Lisbon due to Covid and the foregin office advice was no foreign travel, no non-essential journeys etc. Ryan Air refused a refund and offered a rescheduling only, and still ran the flight. I didn't want to reschedule or take a voucher from them. In the end I appealed to my credit card company and they refunded £241, the full cost of the flight. However, just before Christmas I was notified that Ryan Air were disputing this and that I should provide more information or the refund would be reversed. I did this but have just received a bill for £241 from Tesco, the credit card provider. Anyone know if I can argue this please?

Sorry I can't help, except that sounds really shit. If your cc company refunded the money it's surely their problem.  You didn't get the money back from Ryanair, that's the bit I'm confused with.  Good luck, of course.

My holiday to Spain was cancelled last summer, Ryanair were the carrier. I got a full refund. Ryanair did cancel the flight though.

Ryanair just flew anyway last summer, even though home office was recommending not to go there.

Ryanair said tough shit, so we lost 1k in flights. the alternative was to pay another grand and risk this year.

fuck you Ryanair

I think from when others were kicking off about Ryanair's behaviour and attitude towards Covid, I think you'll find that because Ryanair ran the flight empty, it's classed as a no-show. It's a shady way to treat customers but they have opted to not give a fuck about their customers and take all the money they can whilst they can.

If you have any form of travel insurance (sometimes it's included with your current account), they would cover you for it but I'd be surprised if the Credit Card company took on the risk and the loss. Whenever I've raised a dispute with the company, they have always said if we're unable to recover the money or the dispute is lost, you will be recharged...

How you've ended up being charged by Tesco sounds like a fuck up and if I was you, I'd call and play dumb. Let them explain why and reason the charge and argue it where you can but sadly I don't think the odds are in your favour on this one. Good luck and hope it works out!

actually, many insurance firms/banks didn't cover it.

Doesn't help but for future reference, I've found that Jet2 have an awesome set of policies and also covered flights for covid cancellations. They were awesome on my flight to Greece just in November. Continually informed/reminded about making sure had filled all the required new documentation pre flight. Kept up to date with any flights that might be grounded and monitored the situation where at one point Greece had several routes open and others closed, sometimes at different times or with constantly changing restrictions.

It was all very reassuring in a world that had and still does (to some degree) have uncertainty. Massive credit to them. The only thing I will say that initially surprised me was that my flight both out and inbound was full. I think this was more to do with them "shuffling" several customers (who were on Jet2 Package holidays) onto the same flights and as well as the Greek CAA and Air Crews deciding to strike (fair play to them though, as they hadn't been paid for yonks) for several days. It wasn't that they were trying to fill up masses of flights. Made sense but the only concern was that I thought they would arrange seating plans in regard to social distancing.

I have had a few customers get theirs back after this has happened. Sometimes the airlines have managed to get it back on simple technicalities like the bank didn't give them a chance to contest it even if they were wrong.
 You can try again if that's what they won the case based on.

Get a travel agent next time ;)

I know this was probably a bit tougue-in-cheek, but has a semblance of truth to it I guess. Until we prioritise anything other than price, Ryanair will always get away with being shitehawks. Why would they bother changing?

This is true, I followed MSE advice and sought the refund from my insurer first. I'd even got insurance with a company who paid out when the ash cloud thing happened, as Martin Lewis saw this as a good indicator that they would then also pay out for Covid. However, they didn't. His advice then was to go to the CC company, and I thought I'd successfully got the refund from them. I'd even since closed my account with Tesco but they've re-billed me for it.

You are right. I am still seeing it now. I had a lady who booked last year with On The Beach online, she was on holiday when the lock down happened and needed to get back asap as could not afford to isolate on return. She booked online and could not get through to them for over a day and asked if i could help. I managed after a lot of backing and forth to direct her to flights that meant she could get home and even suggested an airport hotel the night before. She was delighted and i didn't charge of course for this and then last week she asked me to prepare a quote for her for later in the year and has declined my Holiday on the basis it was £38 in total more expensive than Love Holidays

I've paid the fuckers back. Shitcunts.