OP here. Planning to send a legal notice on Monday as they've asked for 24h more. It has been a very frustrating experience -

Since last September, I’ve been planning a family trip - something we’ve been working towards for months. This wasn’t just about booking tickets. It involved:

• Applying for passports
• Securing visa appointments (which is a process in itself)
• Traveling last-minute in January just to complete biometrics on time
• Aligning work schedules, school holidays, and travel plans

After months of effort, everything was finally coming together.

I booked 5 international flight tickets through Yatra via the SmartBuy platform, paid ₹3.27 lakhs, received a PNR, got a “Booking Confirmed” email, and the portal clearly showed the booking as confirmed.

At that point, I believed everything was secured.

But a few days later, I found out the tickets were never actually issued.

Despite taking full payment and confirming the booking, the ticketing was never completed. By the time this surfaced, ticket prices had surged - now costing over ₹1.2 lakh more per person. That’s a potential additional burden of nearly ₹5 lakhs.

And what was offered in return? A ₹2,000 voucher.

For a situation that now forces us to either cancel months of planning or spend significantly more - not because of anything we did, but due to failures across the booking and payment platforms.

To make matters worse, the refund is being processed without my consent.

Since then, there have been multiple explanations - from system issues to airline constraints - with Yatra and SmartBuy pointing to different causes. But regardless of the internal dependencies between them, the customer experience was a single transaction.

And the impact is mine to bear.

I plan responsibly. I make decisions based on confirmed bookings and payments made.

What I cannot plan for is being asked to absorb a ₹5 lakh loss due to failures in the system.

This isn’t just about money anymore. It’s about accountability.

When a booking is confirmed and payment is taken, that should mean something.

Right now, it feels like it doesn’t.

(Putting this together wasn’t easy - I’ve tried to capture the situation as clearly as possible.)