[madsing]

In May 2012, I booked return tickets (economy class, economy basic plus) from Lufthansa web site. A few days later, I had to cancel the booking for business reasons, I did it from their web site and received an acknowledgment email confirming that I would be refunded, less charges, a few days later.

The following week, I was shocked to see that I had just been refunded S$147.40 out of the total fare of S$2,469.80. I called the Lufthansa reservation centre and they could not help me.

I wrote to the customer service. First, they replied that I had booked "combined fare tickets", which is not correct:

This is their reply: "Based on our research on the fare rules ofthe ticket you purchased, the ticket can be cancelled at any time with a charge of EUR 120. However, the rules on cancellation also note that when combiningfares, the most restrictive cancellation conditions will apply for the entire ticket. It also stipulates that refund of unused taxes and fees are permitted.What this means is your ticket is non-refundable and if cancelled, only the unused taxes and fees will be refunded. Hence, the refund amount of SGD147.40."

I objected, then they came back with a different explanation:

"A Basic Economy ticket is fully non-refundable while an Economy Basic Plus does allow a refund but only if the condition for refund is met. As we have mentioned in our earlier correspondence, a visa rejection is one example. Another condition would be a death in the family. Furthermore, if these conditions for cancelation are not met, then no refund will be issued except for the taxes and fees."

I have checked their web site, the terms and conditions, the FAQs, and could not find any place where this is mentioned. During the booking process, it is clearly mentioned "Refund: EUR 120" for Economy Basic Plus tickets.The ticket itself mentions: "Cancellation: The ticket is refundable against a charge of EUR 120"

I could not get a proper answer. Lufthansa has closed my case and stopped replying to my emails...