My return flight to New Zealand was purchased via a travel site and was not as easy to get resolved. Even though the flight was completely cancelled by the airline, this unnamed travel site would not refund my ticket. I had submitted the form on their website the same time as the other airlines, but still had not heard anything at all, just saw the ticket disappear from "my bookings", but nothing else happened. Numerous phone calls and extreme waits later (first call I was number 511 in the queue!) I was only offered a credit, but only for the base fare and didn't include the taxes, which I thought was very strange. They also charged me a $70 cancellation fee, which is crazy since the airline cancelled the flights! After numerous attempts to rebook flights for a later date, the travel agent finally offered me a refund minus more fees (and still keeping the taxes). I disputed the TOTAL charges for these flights and a few weeks later the vendor gave me a FULL refund. The whole process took over 6 weeks to get resolved and was not pleasant.
I decided not to share the company name as I"m sure all of the major travel sites are experiencing a lot of chaos lately. I wouldn't exactly be put off using them in the future as I always compare flight prices with a few different sites, including directly with the airline in order to book the best fare. This site usually has the lowest prices when searching so I have booked many, many flights through them over the years; I haven't had any issues until now and in the end was resolved with a full-refund.
For now it will be domestic travel and looking out for great travel deals in 2021.
I'm looking forward to scheduling our trip to Niue which I got 5 round-trip tickets for around $800 USD. I was happy to keep the airline credit for this one, as they will match the fare on rebooking.
Tips: Be persistent and be firm that you want a FULL refund. Many airlines are good about this, but travel websites are not. I was offered a credit even when requesting a refund. After a few times trying to rebook us on other flights, they finally offered me a (partial) refund. Not good enough...
Dispute the charges with your credit card if you were not offered a FULL refund. This was the only way I got the cancellation fees dropped and the full amount credited back to my card. Even though I received a partial refund, I was able to dispute the charge, which was the only way I received a total refund.