Reader Email: Wizz Shenanigans

A LoyaltyLobby reader sent us a Wizz Air case where funds from a flex booking cancellation were cleared after 90 days.

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You can access Wizz Air here.

Reader’s Email:

I think you may find it informative. I gave up on trying to fix the issue.

Last year I booked a GDN-FNC on Wizz using their Flex rate – which I later cancelled. A few days later they deposited the funds into my Wizz account (minus the cancellation fee). To make a long story short, 3 months later when I logged in, the funds expired. I looked at emails with invoices  and there was no mention at all of how those refunds are handled (definitely nothing about 90 days expiration window) so I poked around the website using my confirmation number and found this:

As you can see there’s a statement in the bottom box asserting that I should have 1 tear for using the refund. So I contacted Wizz and this is what they wrote back:

Thank you for contacting Wizz Air Customer Service.

Upon reviewing your case, we confirm that the cancellation of your flight with reservation code REMOVED was processed using the WIZZ Flex service. According to our WIZZ Flex Terms and Conditions:​

• Refund Processing: “The amount for the cancelled booking is refunded to the WIZZ-account of the booking holder within 72 hours notwithstanding the number of passengers in the given booking.”​
• Refund Validity: “The refunded amount can be used within 90 days from the date of the refund. The departure date of the new flights booked using the refunded amount does not need to fall within this time period.”​

In your case, the credits amounting to 746 PLN were deposited into your WIZZ Account on 1 December 2024, making them valid until 27 February 2025. As the credits were not utilized within this 90-day period, they expired and were removed from your account on 2 March 2025.​

We acknowledge that during the cancellation process, there was information stating, “The credited amount will be available on the WIZZ Account for 1 year and can be used for purchasing new Wizz Air flights and services.” However, this clause refers to credits granted by the airline in cases where Wizz Air initiates cancellations/modifications or standard voluntary cancellations with applicable fees, not to voluntary cancellations made by passengers using WIZZ Flex.

Regrettably, as the credits have expired and in line with our policies, we are unable to reinstate the expired balance. For future bookings, we recommend carefully reviewing the terms and conditions of any additional services purchased, as well as our cancellation and refund policies, to ensure clarity on the applicable conditions in each scenario.​

Should you have any further questions or require additional assistance, please do not hesitate to contact our customer service team.

So apparently their Flex fare is less flexible than the standard one. Lesson learned.

Conclusion

Wizz Air might be an airline that our non-European readers have never heard of, but it is a significant ultra-low-cost carrier in Europe with a base also in the UAE.

You have to be really careful with these ULCCs. Their business model is to get you to buy in using a low headline price, but then they hit you with all kinds of fees, and likely, a significant number of bookings are never flown (the airline just collects the fee).

I try to avoid them, as I need to travel with more than a backpack, and the fees add up.

So, the airline acknowledges that the reader was displayed an incorrect fund expiry message during the cancellation process, but they cannot do anything about it. Well. Perhaps they should ensure that the correct information is displayed on their website.

What have been your experiences with Wizz? Please comment below.

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