MakeMyTrip refund win on LinkedIn sparks more customer complaints

by Piyush Mathur

Going by an update he made on September 26, 2025 to his LinkedIn post, corporate executive Rupesh Sinha sounded like a satisfied customer of MakeMyTrip, the India-based online travel company. The update was about a refund he had received for the charges he had recently incurred on that company’s website.

Screenshot of Tarun Mishra’s LinkedIn comment on Rupesh Sinha’s post; Mishra’s comment includes his own screenshot of a message he received from MakeMyTrip (and a part of his response to it)
(Credit: Tarun Mishra)

The update, however, gave yet another opportunity to some of the multitudes of commentators on his original post to add to their stories of pain involving the company.

Sinha’s original post, dated September 18, had denounced his ticket cancellation charges as ‘unfair’. That post details his experience cancelling a domestic flight—from Varanasi to Ahmedabad—20 days before the scheduled departure. His ticket—worth Rs. 6,840—had yielded a refund of only Rs. 504.09 after multiple layers of deductions. A screenshot shared in the post shows total deductions of Rs. 6,336, including the following:

• Airline cancellation fee: Rs. 4,594

• OTA cancellation fee: Rs. 300

• OTA convenience fee: Rs. 425

• Ancillary charges: Rs. 385

• Instant card discount reversal: Rs. 632

The post had questioned whether such deductions amounted to a fair practice, with Sinha noting, ‘I’m still wondering – is this refund or just a way of passing on every possible cost to the customer?’

Calling for stricter norms to protect customers, Sinha had also tagged the post to presumptive LinkedIn handles of India’s aviation regulator, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), and Indian government’s consumer-rights awareness initiative Jago Grahak Jago (JGJ).

Neither of those LinkedIn handles, however, is LinkedIn-verified, and nor does either show any activity. As it is, the actual government initiative of JGJ has had little effect on India’s consumers’ rights or satisfaction levels—not that the government has conducted any surveys to measure any of that anyway.

While acknowledging that airlines levy cancellation charges, Sinha’s post had also criticised online travel agencies (OTAs) such as MakeMyTrip for imposing layered fees without sufficient transparency.

‘Customers are left helpless with no transparency or fair policy,’ his post read.

MakeMyTrip’s presumptive customers reacted with their own complaints against the company

Sinha’s post had sparked online discussion about refund practices in India’s travel industry, with travellers demanding fairer systems for cancellations. Indeed, his post had received quite a number of similar allegations from India’s other LinkedIn users—angry, frustrated customers—specifically against MakeMyTrip.

The overwhelming resentment against MakeMyTrip’s cancellation practices came into a bit of a sharper relief in response to Sinha’s update that his own grievance had been fully addressed.

One commentator, Tarun Mishra—whose profile represents him as a ‘Hospitality Professional’—expressed his hope that his 3-month old complaint would also be addressed by the company (which, he claimed, had otherwise assured him that it would be). His complaint, however, concerns the company’s lack of cooperation in his quest to trace online hackers of his Amazon account through which tickets were fraudulently purchased on MakeMyTrip’s website using his credit cards.

Tarun Mishra, however, has not been so lucky as Sinha!

Screenshot of Ajay Dev’s LinkedIn post detailing his frustrating experience with MakeMyTrip cancelling an international ticket (Credit: Ajay Dev)

MakeMyTrip’s LinkedIn handlers—who do seem personally proactive—noticed Mishra’s comment and nudged the right people in the company to attend to it (aside from asking him to connect with them on LinkedIn). For he followed up on Sinha’s post’s thread with a comment bearing a screenshot of a message he had received from the company within hours.

The company’s response, however, was not to his satisfaction. MakeMyTrip simply wrote to him that given that he had already reported the matter to law enforcement and his bank, it was now their responsibility to follow it up with him.

The dysfunction is systemwide.

This is just the tip of the iceberg that broke loose with Sinha’s post: Indians have aired their grievances not only against MakeMyTrip but also airlines like Indigo as well as the aviation industry generally, citing all sorts of systemic deficiencies.

Underneath all this is also plenty of anger against the government’s overall failure to properly regulate the travel sector, especially civil aviation, and the authorities’ tone-deaf approach to challenges faced by consumers in India.

Ajay Dev’s post

A few commentators did take the side of OTAs, pointing out to Sinha that there are different types of tickets—and that he should have purchased a ticket from a category showing greater flexibility of cancellation (and a higher refund threshold).

However, another commentator, Ajay Dev—whose LinkedIn profile describes him as a Senior Software Engineer—directed them to a post he had himself made on this issue just a few days ago.

In that post, Dev notes that in May 2025 he had his ‘worst experience with MakeMyTrip’ when he ‘booked an international ticket’ using that platform and paying ‘₹12,000–15,000 extra for their Flex Ticket’.

This category of tickets, he notes, promises a ‘free cancellation’ and a ‘free date change’. But when he cancelled his ‘ticket well in advance as per policy’, MakeMyTrip first promised him the refund ‘in 7 days’ and then revised it to ‘21 days’—except that it has been almost 4 months since and he has yet to receive the refund!

In the meantime, his post goes on to allege, the company kept sending him scripted one liners in response to his queries, and ‘has now blocked’ him ‘from even viewing [his] refund request page’. Worse, he was sent a ‘550 INR refund for no reason specified’ when what he believes he deserves, per the ticketing slab he had followed, is ‘full refund’.

All is not well even though it ended well for Rupesh Sinha!

In its final moments, Dev’s long post baldly declares the following: ‘Do NOT fall for the Flex Ticket trap on MMT. Paying extra doesn’t guarantee anything—it only gives false hope and endless frustration.’

As for Sinha’s comment thanking MakeMyTrip for the refund he received after starting this whole thread on LinkedIn, it is notable that he did not forget all the other aggrieved customers that had shared their pain in response and supported him. His public note of gratitude for MakeMyTrip includes the following punishing text:

While my issue is now settled, the hundreds of similar experiences shared here show that this is not just ‘one-off.’ It is a bigger problem that needs fixing. I feel the same pain for everyone who reacted, commented, and shared their own refund horror stories.

Screenshots of Sinha’s post and crucial update are posted below; the entire chain can be accessed via this link:

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/rupesh-sinha-817317b1_customerexperience-makemytrip-refund-activity-7374132119146659842-s2rq

Screenshot of Rupesh Sinha’s original post alleging unfair ticket cancellation charges on MakeMyTrip platform, which intervened to his satisfaction later (Credit: Rupesh Sinha)

Screenshot of Rupesh Sinha’s note of thanks on LinkedIn for MakeMyTrip and some related comments (Credit: Rupesh Sinha)

Thoughtfox has reached out to Mr. Sameer Bajaj, MakeMyTrip’s press representative, for any comments on this report. If any feedback is received from the company, it would be reflected in an update to this report.