Expedia must refund $3,787 in airport taxes for B.C. family’s cancelled flights, tribunal says

(Shane Kell / Pexels)

A man who battled Expedia over the airport taxes charged on his family’s cancelled flights is entitled to a refund, B.C.’s small claims tribunal has ruled.

While the travel company did provide Roger Clarke a credit for each of the flights, it subtracted airport taxes from the total – something the Civil Resolution Tribunal found was a violation of Expedia’s terms and conditions for the purchase.

“Clarke provided Expedia’s email travel confirmations for all of these flights,” tribunal member Peter Mennie wrote, in his March 12 decision. “The confirmations say that Expedia does not charge cancellation fees.”

Eight-person travel party

Clarke told the tribunal he used Expedia to book WestJet flights for himself and seven family members to fly to the U.K., then return home from Barcelona back in January 2023 – but ultimately had to cancel the trip.

He provided an email from Expedia confirming the cancellation, which promised he would receive credits for the full value of the flights, minus a $150 penalty per passenger from WestJet.

The email also indicated the credits would have to be used for the same passengers flying from the same departure countries, according to the decision, though Expedia later retracted that claim after Clarke reached out to WestJet to verify the restrictions.

The traveller then tried using the credits to book a family trip to Maui, plus a separate vacation in Cabo San Lucas for himself and his wife, but was surprised to find they didn’t cover the total cost.

“Expedia said this was because airport taxes from his original flights were deducted from his flight credits, because it had to pay the airport tax at the time of purchase,” Mennie wrote.

Airport taxes not deducted

Clarke told the tribunal he contacted two airlines, Air Canada and WestJet, and was told they do not deduct airport taxes on flight exchanges.

He asked Expedia to provide a breakdown of how his flight credits were calculated, but the company did not do so – even after tribunal staff reached out five times seeking evidence for the dispute.

“The CRT may draw an adverse inference when a party fails to provide relevant evidence without a good explanation,” Mennie wrote. “Here, it would have been a simple matter for Expedia to provide a copy of its cancellation policy and an explanation of how Mr. Clarke’s flight credits were calculated. It did not do so.”

The company did not provide any evidence at all in the dispute, the tribunal member noted.

The lack of response left Mennie to calculate damages using Clarke’s flight confirmations, which showed he paid a total of $3,787 in taxes and fees for the cancelled flights to and from Europe.

The tribunal member determined that was a “reasonable estimate” for damages.

“In the absence of submissions or evidence from Expedia, I will assume that this amount represents the airport taxes which were wrongly deducted,” he wrote.