Now you can book flights on Paytm with refunds from flights cancelled due to coronavirus

Digital payments startup Paytm announced on Thursday, April 30, that it has enabled a new 'credit shell' feature on its platform. This will allow users to use the refunded amount from cancelled flight tickets to book future flights. According to a statement issued by the company, this will immediately benefit over one lakh travelers who had previously booked flights on the platform, but were eventually cancelled due to the nationwide lockdown.

ALSO READ

Coronavirus: Paytm, KVN Foundation to provide 75,000 meals to migrant workers

Abhishek Rajan, Senior Vice President of Paytm Travel, said:

"These are unprecedented times that require unprecedented actions to ensure that Paytm’s customer experience doesn’t get impacted. I feel proud to share that members from Paytm Travel’s Business, Technology, Product, and Operations teams collaborated from their respective homes relentlessly for days and nights to make this feature available to our users in quick time.”

The 'credit shell' feature, which was initially offered by some airlines on Paytm's platform, has now been integrated on its website and mobile site. Travellers whose flights have been suspended are being issues a refund by the respective airlines in the form of a credit shell balance of an amount equal to the cancelled flight ticket value. Users can redeem this balance for booking a flight ticket on the same airline for any future journey date in the next 12 months. This is applicable for all flight bookings scheduled between March 25 and April 14. For flights bookings between April 15 and May 3, the credit shell will be available seven days after booking.

The digital payments platform had earlier announced that it aims to contribute Rs 500 crore to the PM-CARES Fund for the COVID-19 crisis. On April 13, Paytm announced that the collections had crossed Rs 100 crore on its platform. It had said for every contribution or any other payment made on Paytm using the wallet, UPI or Paytm Bank debit card, it will contribute an extra amount of up to Rs 10.