Really disappointed in Interrail after no action taken to refund for expensive seat reservations on trains which were cancelled. please advise how you obtained a refund on cancelled trains?

1. There are about half a dozen websites where you can book TGV reservations. Where did you book yours? That is where you should request the refund.
2. When did you submit your request for refund? Interrail then has 1 month to refund.
3. How did you submit your request? The best was is this form, or sending an e-mail, which also creates a request.
4. Did you receive a confirmation mail, with a request number?
5. After you created a request, do not create a new request to ask for an update, because that just makes the queue longer. Instead, reply to the confirmation mail.

Hi, 

We booked all of our trains through the Interrail rail planner app including paying for the seat reservations so once they were cancelled, we followed the instructions on the Interrail app to submit refund requests through the app and not directly with the train provider. We've submitted everything via the guidance, been issued a claims number back in mid August. I've used the chat function to ask for updates on the claim and I receive the same reply. I've replied to the email confirming receipt of the refund request with the claim number asking for updates and receive the exact response each time saying the claim is open and they are dealing with a high volume. 

I'm not convinced I'm actually communicating with a real person given all three attempts for an update have led to the exact same email being received,  it's now nearly 3 months on. It shouldn't be this difficult to receive a refund and have submitted all the evidence, booked tickets, screenshots, evidence of the cancellation etc. 

I'm wondering what else I can do as email and chat doesn't seem to move anything along. 

You cannot book reservations in the Rail Planner app. It only forwards to some of the websites where you can book. For Paris to Zurich, it offers booking via Interrail and via SNCB. Which one did you use?

​@Interrail Community Moderator When is the backlog of compensation claims going to be cleared? The legal limit is 1 month, so Interrail should be working to reach that again.

Hi, 

We booked through interrail, via the rail planner app. The route was Paris Gare de Lyon to Basel in mid August for a family of 4. 

This is the standard email response I've received since August when asking for an update on the refund. On the last occasion, I asked how I could make a complaint or escalate but received the same email back which makes me question if this is just an AI chat bot response and whether the claim is even being actioned. 

"We can confirm that your request has been received and is still open with our Claims Team. We are currently experiencing a higher-than-usual volume of claims, which unfortunately means that some cases are taking longer to review". 

I would really like someone from Interrail to look into this for me. Will gladly provide the claim number if there's someone on the forum who can do this.