These airlines have been the worst — and best — about refunds

April 2020 was the slowest month for U.S. domestic travel since the outset of the global pandemic.

With many would-be travelers stuck at home under shelter-in-place orders, some airlines got stingy about providing refunds for canceled flights. Those who've followed TPG coverage know that when an airline cancels a flight to, from or within the United States, you're entitled to a refund — regardless of the reason for the cancellation.

That's thanks to U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) policy. When an airline violates the rule, one of the best courses of action is to file a consumer complaint with the DOT, as well as a credit card chargeback.

Each month, the DOT aggregates the complaints and publishes an Air Travel Consumer Report. June's report contains complaint data from April, so let's take a deeper look at how the airlines behaved at the height of the pandemic.

Refunds continued to be the top issue in April

Nearly 95% of all complaints that the DOT received about U.S. carriers were related to refunds. In absolute terms, that's 7,700 refund-related complaints out of the roughly 8,000 total.

The same story applies to international carriers. 81% of non-U.S. airline complaints were about refunds.

This massive spike in complaints translates to a 17,641% increase year-over-year, and a 534% increase month-over-month from March 2020 to April 2020. It's no wonder that the DOT's recent enforcement notices cite an "unprecedented" increase in the number of refund-related complaints.

This dramatic rise shows that airlines weren't necessarily playing by the rules — and that travelers knew to take matters into their own hands by escalating their case with the DOT.

Of the three largest U.S. airlines, United continued to be stingy

After March's report, I predicted that United would receive a significant spike in complaints, and indeed it did. In April 2020, United Airlines ended up in the top spot for complaints against the major U.S. carriers.

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If you’re a United flyer, odds are that you’ve had trouble getting a refund from the Chicago-based carrier. That’s because UA made many adjustments to its schedule change policy throughout the pandemic. Before the coronavirus hit, you could get your money back when your flight was changed by more than two hours.

Throughout March and into April, United kept adjusting what time change qualifies for a refund. It went up to 25 hours, then went to an undefined “significant” change and then finally went down to six hours. UA applied these changes retroactively as well, rankling many customers.

Looking at the April data, United received 2,727 complaints regarding refunds or roughly 1,200 complaints per 100,000 enplanements. That's about eight times more than both American Airlines and Delta.

And like in March, both American and Delta were neck-and-neck for the number of complaints related to refunds. Neither has been nearly as stingy as United.

American did make a customer-unfriendly change to its schedule change policy for new tickets issued in April and onwards, so it'll be interesting to track how the complaint data changes in the coming months.

Southwest was the best U.S. airline about refunds

Based on the DOT data for April, Southwest received the fewest refund-related complaints of any major U.S. carrier. Specifically, the Dallas-based carrier received about 101 complaints per 100,000 enplanements.

In my mind, this comes down to Southwest's year-round flexible change policy. Flyers can always make free changes and cancellations to their tickets, so long as they reuse the credit within a year of ticket issue.

This generous policy is wellknown among loyal passengers. Plus, the travel-fund expiration was extended across the board, so Southwest flyers have plenty of time to use their credits.

Getting your money back for a nonrefundable ticket requires the airline to cancel your flight. But a portion of Southwest flyers likely didn't need or want to wait until the last minute to see if the airline canceled their flight since they're familiar and comfortable with future travel credit (that'll soon be convertible to Rapid Rewards points.)

Hawaiian said aloha to refunds

Like United, the Hawaii-based carrier was one of the stingiest about refunds. It continued to defy the DOT rules for months, having just recently retracted its strict cancellation policy.

Though Hawaiian had only 197 refund-related complaints in April, that's a massive number when normalizing for emplanements. In fact, it's 931 complaints per 100,000 enplanements, which puts Hawaiian as the third-worst U.S. airline when it comes to refunds, according to the DOT data.

Ultra low-cost carriers like Frontier and Spirit weren't great either

Across the entire set of U.S. airlines, Frontier was the stingiest about refunds. The DOT received 850 refund-related complaints, or about 2,000 per 100,000 enplanements. In March, United took the top spot. This time, it was Frontier which was about twice as bad as than United.

That's likely due to the fact that Frontier proactively gave out restrictive vouchers for canceled flights. And some passengers didn't even realize they were entitled to a refund instead since the fine print on the cancellation emails we've seen was incredibly small.

Allegiant and Spirit were stingier than American and Delta, but not nearly as bad as Frontier, United or Hawaiian.

Air Canada, TAP took the top spot for international carriers

Though Air Canada has been one of the best airlines at engaging its grounded frequent flyers, the airline has been downright awful about refunding canceled flights.

The carrier continues to argue that it doesn't have to follow DOT policy, and it's not giving any refunds for canceled flights to or from the U.S. This restrictive policy led to the carrier's spot as the most complained-about foreign airline. (WestJet also adopted a similar policy and saw a high number of complaints.)

TAP Air Portugal also saw a high number of refund-related complaints. That's likely due to the fact that it continued flying many of its U.S. routes in April, meaning that you weren't eligible for a refund (since the flight actually operated.)

Bottom line

By now you should know that you're entitled to a refund when your flight is canceled by the airline.

But just because you're entitled to one doesn't mean the airlines are making it easy for you to get your money back. Frontier, Hawaiian and United continued to be the worst offenders in April. American, Delta and Southwest were some of the best of the U.S. carriers.

Time will tell how the airlines performed in May, but hopefully, we'll begin seeing fewer refund-related complaints as travel slowly begins to restart.

This post has been updated to reflect the correct number of refund-related complaints for United Airlines.

For more about refunds, see:

• You are entitled to a refund when an airline cancels your flight
• Why you should think twice before accepting an airline voucher — even with a bonus
• Why airlines cancel flights at the last minute