Flight cancelled because of Etna: who pays you back, and how

First of all, while you are at the airport

• Get the cancellation in writing: the email, SMS or app screen saying “cancelled” or “diverted”. It is the one document everybody will ask for: airline, bank and insurer.
• Sign no waivers and take no voucher if you want money: a cash refund is your right, a voucher is your choice.
• Ask the airline for care (meals, drinks, a hotel with transport) and, if you sort it out yourself, keep every receipt: nobody refunds anything without one.
• Pay with the same card you bought the ticket with: card policies only reimburse expenses made with the insured card.
• Keep boarding passes, booking and times, and note who told you what and when. In six weeks you will not remember.

1. The airline

What you are owed

• Refund or re-routing, your choice. The ticket price back within seven days, or another flight to your destination as soon as possible (even with another airline, even to another airport) or on a later date of your choosing.
• Care while you wait. Meals and drinks in proportion to the wait, a hotel and transport if a night is needed, two calls or emails. With volcanic ash this duty has no limit in time or money: the EU Court of Justice ruled so in 2013 (McDonagh v Ryanair, C-12/11), precisely about the Icelandic cloud.
• Diverted flight to Palermo or Comiso: transport from there to the airport you booked, or to a nearby agreed destination, is on the airline.
• Cash compensation (€250, 400 or 600 by distance): with the eruption, usually not. Ash is an “extraordinary circumstance” that rules it out. It is due if the real cause is something else (crew, technical, planning): the airline must prove the circumstance, saying so is not enough.

How to claim

• Complain to the airline through its online form (or the single EU form): ticket refund and care expenses with receipts. Ask for money, not vouchers. Keep the case number.
• No reply in six weeks, or a reply that ignores the regulation: complaint to ENAC (the Italian enforcement body) through its online form, within two years of the flight. ENAC checks and can fine the airline, but does not pay you itself.
• If you want the money and the airline will not budge: conciliation on ConciliaWeb, run by the Transport Regulation Authority. In Italy it is mandatory before going to court. Free, online.
• Last resort: the justice of the peace. For these sums usually without a lawyer.

What to expect

By law the ticket refund comes within seven days; in practice it often takes weeks and a reminder. Care expenses are refunded if “reasonable” and documented: a normal hotel yes, a suite no; the taxi from Palermo yes, if the airline offered no shuttle. Cash compensation on eruption days is almost always refused: it is worth insisting only if you have reason to believe the cause was something else.

2. The card you paid with

The rule for all of them: cover exists only if the ticket (or the trip) was paid with that card, and what counts is the policy extract of your own card, not what the network advertises. Look for “travel inconvenience”, “flight delay or cancellation”, “missed connection”, “trip cancellation”.

American Express

• Platinum and Gold Cards include a “flight delay or cancellation” benefit: if the airline gives you no alternative transport within four hours of the scheduled time, the policy reimburses hotel, meals and drinks paid with the Card, up to the limit in your own policy extract. Basic cards usually do not include it.
• How: claim within 30 days of the event, through the Chubb Claims Center for American Express (americanexpress.it/chubbsinistri) or the number on the back of the Card. You need: ticket, itinerary, the airline’s written confirmation of the cancellation or delay, receipts.
• What to expect: reimbursement of documented expenses up to the limit, usually within a few weeks. It does not cover the ticket (that is the airline’s job) and pays nothing if you accepted an alternative within the four hours.

Mastercard and Visa

• Cover is decided by the issuing bank, not by the network. A World Elite from one bank and a World Elite from another carry different policies; Platinum, World, Infinite and Signature usually have one, Standard and Gold often not. The only document that counts is your own card’s policy.
• What is usually there: extra expenses for delay or cancellation beyond a set number of hours (often four or six), missed connection, trip cancellation before departure for listed reasons. Almost always with limits per person and per trip.
• How: the assistance number on the back of the card or the insurance area of the bank’s app; claims must be filed within the policy deadline (28–30 days in many). Same papers as for Amex: proof of payment with the card, the airline’s written confirmation, receipts.
• What to expect: card policies top up what the airline does not cover, they do not replace it: you will be asked whether you already claimed from the airline. Reimbursement within the limit, in weeks.

Chargeback, with any card

• If the flight was cancelled and the airline does not refund the ticket, for the network that is a “service not provided”: you can ask your bank to credit the amount back. It works with Visa, Mastercard and Amex, credit and debit cards, and PayPal too.
• How: first write to the airline and keep the request and any reply (the bank will ask for it); then open the dispute from the bank’s app or customer service. Network deadlines are as a rule within 120 days of the charge or of the scheduled flight date: do not wait for ENAC’s six weeks to run out.
• What to expect: often a provisional credit, then the outcome within one or two months. It covers the ticket price only, not expenses.

3. Travel insurance

• What it can cover: trip cancellation before departure, departure delay, missed connection, extra meals and accommodation, early return. Each benefit has its own limit and excess.
• Mind the exclusions. Many policies exclude natural events, eruptions included, unless there is a specific benefit. And nearly all exclude the “known event”: a policy bought while the eruption was already under way does not cover the consequences of the eruption.
• How: open the claim on the insurer’s portal or number within the days set by the policy (often few: three, five), with the airline’s written confirmation, tickets, receipts and, if asked, proof that you claimed from the airline first.
• What to expect: documented expenses reimbursed within the limit and net of the excess; for cancellation, the price the supplier did not refund. Timing: weeks. If refused, you can go to the Italian insurance ombudsman (IVASS).

4. The package holiday

• Your counterpart is the organiser, not the airline: it answers for the whole package. The agency that sold it to you must forward your messages without delay.
• If part of the trip falls through, it must offer suitable alternatives, of equal or higher quality where possible, at no extra cost; if of lower quality, a price reduction.
• If your return is impossible due to unavoidable and extraordinary circumstances, such as the airport closing, the organiser pays for the necessary accommodation, of equivalent category where possible, for up to three nights per traveller. The three-night cap does not apply to people with reduced mobility, pregnant women, unaccompanied minors and people needing medical assistance, if notified at least 48 hours before departure.
• Before departure, if extraordinary circumstances at the destination compromise the trip, you can cancel without fees and get your money back.
• What to expect: a serious organiser re-books and puts you in a hotel without arguing; a less serious one points you to the airline, and cannot. Put everything in writing and keep receipts for what you advance.

5. Hotel, rental car, train

Non-refundable bookings carry no automatic right, but there is force majeure: write at once to the hotel or rental company, attach the flight cancellation and ask to move or cancel without penalty. On eruption days most agree, and in writing it holds. If you paid with a card that has a “trip cancellation” policy, check whether the event qualifies.

Who to contact, in order

• The airline: the airport desk for care and re-routing right away; the online complaint form for refund and expenses.
• Catania airport (SAC): information and assistance for flight irregularities, on its dedicated page.
• ENAC, the Italian civil aviation authority: online complaint form, after six weeks without an airline reply.
• ART, ConciliaWeb: mandatory conciliation before court.
• Your bank or card issuer: the number on the back of the card, for the policy and the chargeback. Amex: Chubb Claims Center.
• Your insurer: number and claims portal stated in the policy.
• The package organiser, or the agency that sold it.
• A consumer association, if you want help writing and insisting.