Fight my ignorance about travel tickets. PLEASE!

Any and all advice, opinions or experiences will be appreciated:

My son purchased an airline ticket from Malaysia Travel for international travel on Malaysia Airlines. $ 880 was charged to his VISA card.)

Now, circumstances have changed and he’s been forced to cancel his travel plans.

Malaysia Travel has a policy of charging a 25% penalty for cancellation. This is OK, but:

They want him to pay them the $220 penalty first, after which they say will refund his entire $880 to the VISA card.

I don’t understand why they can’t just credit his card for $660, thus collecting their penalty that way. Maybe I’m being too suspicious here but I’d hate to see him lose $880 plus $220.

Dopers! Any experience, advice or great thoughts worth sharing?

If they screw him, he can reverse the charge on the $220 at the very least.

Corporate travel consultant guy here,

Did he purchase the ticket directly from the airline? Is he talking directly to the airline?

My bet is that it’s to do with the commission charged by the credit card company

I’m don’t think so. He dealt with Malaysia Travel, but his tickets are on a Malaysia Airlines flight.

Malaysia Travel
1215 E. Walnut Street
Carbondale, Il.

His only contact with them has been through the internet.

The statement they sent him reads:
"Total amount you paid for tickets $880.
Refund by Malaysia Airlines to Visa: 880. Cancellation Penalty (25%) 220.

(Please allow at least 2 weeks for credit refund from Malaysia Airlines)"

It continues at the bottom: “Please do not hesitate to contact us if you need further clarification on the above. For us to process the tickets accordingly,we will require you to submit Cancellation Penalty amount due before we can proceed with processing cancellation.”

That’s the part that has me concerned.

Thanks for checking this out.

Oh I know…

It’ll be a cancellation cost of 25% of the TOTAL cost…including all taxes etc…they can’t refund 75% of the airport or immigration tax of someone who hasn’t flown

Now that we’ve all returned to the work-a-day world, here’s the one permitted bump.