I was supposed to fly to Europe the night after President Donald Trump announced travel restrictions due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Nevertheless, my flights were still scheduled to operate as planned up until around 9:00 p.m. on March 11, the night before my trip when President Donald Trump began his speech from the Oval Office. In his speech, the president announced all travel between the US and Europe except for the UK and Ireland would be canceled for 30 days starting that Friday.
After waiting on hold with Lufthansa for only around thirty minutes, a surprisingly low wait time considering the circumstances, I was on the line with an agent. Hurriedly explaining the situation and still clearly in shock, I was barely able to convey to her the alphanumeric booking code that I could recite by heart in the days leading up to the flight.
At the time of publishing, over two months since the initial call to Lufthansa to cancel the ticket, I've yet to receive that refund. It's not an isolated incident either as I booked two tickets, having fronted my companion the cost of the ticket by putting the fare on my card, and received nothing for either ticket.