U.S. Department of Transportation has issued an enforcement notice that U.S. and foreign airlines (emphasis mine):
remain obligated to provide a prompt refund to passengers for flights to, within, or from the United States when the carrier cancels the passenger’s scheduled flight or makes a significant schedule change and the passenger chooses not to accept the alternative offered by the carrier.  The obligation of airlines to provide refunds, including the ticket price and any optional fee charged for services a passenger is unable to use, does not cease when the flight disruptions are outside of the carrier’s control (e.g., a result of government restrictions).
United & jetBlue are both guilty of trying to force consumers to accept travel credits when they are legally entitled to a full refund. I suspect that the DoT is being weighed down by the volume of complaints from consumers about this deceptive and illegal practice and that’s why we are seeing this enforcement notice. That means that as consumers we need to continue to file these complaints until airlines are forced to follow the law.
