I had booked a trip for my son’s eighteenth birthday to Bonaire for June 2020. Obviously, everything was canceled.

The travel agency I used, retroactively changed their refund policy to zero refunds regardless of cancellation time (before it was a full refund if canceled with 90 days notice) without notifying clients in March 2020.

Luckily, my credit card company took them to task and got my money back since they both retroactively changed the policy without notice and couldn’t provide a signed statement from me accepting the change in policy (which they lied and claimed to have).

But the largest expense was the first class airfare I’d booked with American Airlines. And they’re normally not great at refunding anything. However, since the island was still closed the entire month of June 2020, they ent ahead and completely refunded the entire amount of spent booking the flights and also gave me a nominal voucher for a future flight.

Sometimes airlines do the right thing. Rarely, but they do.