Emirates’ New Cancellation Options Are Fantastic (Especially If You’ve Already Accepted A Voucher)

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Emirates is one of the many airlines that have been showing a very serious reluctance to offer passengers refunds on their canceled flights even though refunds are exactly what these passengers are entitled to but, somewhat unexpectedly, Emirates has had a big change of heart and is offering customers a variety of options that now put a lot of other airlines to shame.

Emirates’ New Refund/Rebooking Options

Emirates is now offering three options for passengers whose flights have been canceled:

Keep Your Current Ticket

All tickets booked with Emirates by 31 May 2020 for travel through 31 August 2020 will be given an automatic extension of 760 days. Customers who still wish to travel (but at later date) can rebook their travel for any dates within two years from the date their ticket was originally issued.

Per Emirates:

Their ticket will be accepted for any flight to the same Emirates destination or to another city within the same Emirates region with no fees for changes. Those who wish to rebook their ticket to travel to another region can also do so – Emirates will not charge reissuance fees, only any applicable fare difference.

The key element to what Emirates has announced here isn’t automatically obvious because the wording (above) is a little ambiguous, but the wording from another Emirates page is a lot clearer:

You can choose to keep your ticket and we’ll extend its validity to 24 months from the date of your original booking. The fare amount you paid for your original booking will be accepted for any flight to the same destination/region^* at any time with no fees during this period.

Emirates customers can choose to keep their tickets and travel to the same city or region as they originally planned to without any change in the cost of travel – Emirates will not charge a fare difference regardless of the dates chosen.

Passengers who like the sound of this option don’t have to do anything with their canceled booking as Emirates is automatically extending the ticket’s validity by two years – all they have to do is call up Emirates to rebook their trip when the mood takes them (and as long as it’s within two years of the original ticket being issued).

Get An Emirates Travel Voucher

Customers can request an Emirates travel voucher equal in value to the cost of their canceled flight(s). Travel vouchers are valid for one year from the date the voucher is issued but they can also be extended by a further year.

Importantly, the travel voucher can be used for any Emirates product or service so it is not cabin-specific, it does not have to be used on the same routing as the canceled flight(s) and it is not limited to flight bookings only  – essentially the travel voucher works a little like a gift card and its total value doesn’t have to be used in a single transaction.

Get A Full Refund

Emirates is now offering all passengers with canceled flights the option of a full refund and it has set up a dedicated web form that passengers can use to submit their requests.

Even if a passenger has already agreed to keep their ticket or if they have requested a travel voucher they can still apply for a full refund without incurring any penalties.

Thoughts

This is impressive.

Emirates got some very well deserved bad press in the early days of this crisis for the way it was refusing to offer immediate refunds and the way it was making life unnecessarily hard for passengers pushing for a refund, so this is an airline showing real repentance right now.

Anyone with a booking for travel before 31 August 2020 has just had the cost of their fare locked in for up to two years and can now use that fare to travel to anywhere within their originally intended region without having to pay any difference in fare.

Just think about that for a moment.

• Someone with a booking for travel between Dubai and Athens (for example) can now change their destination to London, Paris, Vienna or any other European city that Emirates operates to, without incurring any fees and without having to make up any increase in the cost of the fare.
• Someone with a booking for travel between Dubai and New York (for example) can now change that for travel to Los Angeles, Chicago, Atlanta etc… and incur no further costs on top of what they have already paid.

These are fantastic options to have.

I’m not really sure why anyone would choose to choose the travel voucher option as it doesn’t appear to be any more rewarding than a cash refund and it’s certainly not as flexible but, in another piece of good news, if a customer has already been issued with a travel voucher (because they thought they had no other option or because they didn’t know any better) they can now apply for a full cash refund.

I don’t think I’ve ever heard of an airline allowing passengers to turn travel vouchers back into cash. The general rule has always been that the acceptance of a voucher is final and that a customer accepting a voucher is, at the same time, forfeiting their right to any other form of refund so this is an exceptional move by Emirates.

Bottom Line

Just as airlines should always be called out when they act poorly they should also be praised when they do well (or when they mend their ways) so Emirates deserves a lot of praise here. With these new options, the airline has gone a long way to repairing the damage it did to its own reputation in the early days of this crisis.

The key takeaway here is that no one should now be out of pocket if their flight was canceled by Emirates. Everyone is entitled to a refund (even if they’ve already accepted a voucher) and that puts Emirates firmly at the top of the list of airlines who are trying to do the right thing by their customers.