Consumer Alert: Slow travel refunds? Don't blame Santa Claus

The holidays are busy. It's a perfect smokescreen for delaying your refund.

Denise Pauze had been waiting almost a year for her refund from Air Canada. She'd canceled her refundable flight from Montreal to Belize City in December 2022 and asked for her money back through her online travel agency, MyFlightSearch.

But the refund never came. There were excuses — the holidays, a higher-than-expected volume of refund requests, then a busy summer travel season.

"Every time I called to check on it, they said, 'Two more weeks,'" she says. "Now, when I call, they just hang up."

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