HDFC Smartbuy Flight ticket refund scam

[Ashish Polinati]

Hi Friends,
Recently I faced this issue and am putting my experience here for awareness of fellow HDFC smartbuy portal users
I used SmartBuy to book flight tickets and these were the pain points
1. The fares published in this portal don't come with any discount, unlike other flight booking portals
2. The redemption charges and 70-30 payment ratio doesn't make this portal much beneficial
3. The refund process when flight is cancelled is a big scam

More details regarding point 3
My flight was rescheduled and I was asked by airline if I would like to proceed with new flight or cancellation, I chose the latter
The refunded amount was mere 250!
Later I wrote an email to HDFC on "support@smartbuyoffers.co" and then they initiated a refund process where they eventually ended up refunding the remaining around INR 2700
I'm not sure if they will refund the points as well
Bottomline is, unless you initiate a discussion for refund, you won't get it - period
This is not appropriate behavior from HDFC

Any suggestions on how I can file an official complaint about this experience?

 

[Anupama_Jha]

There's a timeline, some 5-7 working days (not sure) for all this. If u got refunded beyond this period, check if really there's any delay.

Post that u can file complaint with higher officials of hdfc followed by RBI Ombudsman.