Each says it is the other one.

The deflection is not a misunderstanding, it is a system — and it only works while the two of them are in separate conversations.

Read this first

Stop carrying messages between them

Relaying each side's excuses to the other, one call at a time, is the loop — you can circle it for a year. Break it by writing to both on the same morning: each letter quoting the other party's position verbatim, each with the same dated deadline, each noting that the other has been written to today. The deflection depends on neither knowing what the other told you; the moment both answers sit in one file, somebody's version stops surviving contact. The airline's written release date is the single most valuable sentence you can obtain — everything the agent says gets measured against it.

What you are owed

Compensation from the airline, wherever you bought the ticket

EC261/UK261 obligations sit with the operating carrier regardless of the sales channel. For denied boarding, cancellation or delay compensation the agent is irrelevant, and an airline that sends you to your agent for it is sending you somewhere the money has never been.

The ticket refund from whoever holds it

Refunds flow back along the sales channel: where the agent took your payment, the airline refunds the agent and the agent owes you. That makes the deflection half-true in each direction, which is exactly why it works — and why the first job is establishing where the money currently sits.

A straight answer, in writing, from each of them

From the airline: has the refund been authorised or released, and on what date. From the agent: has it been received, and when will it be passed on. Neither question can be honestly deflected, and each answer is your lever on the other party.

How they will refuse, and what answers it

“You must claim through your travel agent.”

For compensation, no: the obligation is the operating carrier's, whoever sold the ticket. For the ticket refund, reply with the precise question — has the money been released to the agent, and on what date — because that answer is owed to you either way.

“The airline has not sent us the funds.”

Get the airline's written statement of the release date and quote it back verbatim. If the airline confirms release and the agent denies receipt, one of them is now wrong on the record, and both know you can see which.

“We are only the intermediary.”

An intermediary whose name is on your card statement took the payment and is the merchant of record. The party that charged you is a party that can refund you — the statement descriptor settles who that was.

Gather this before you write

Your card statement showing whose name took the payment
The airline's written statement on whether and when the refund was released, with its date
The agent's messages, with timestamps, saying what they are waiting for
The booking confirmation showing both references — the agent's and the airline's
A dated timeline of who told you what, on one page

Now make them answer.

Tell us what happened in your own words. We write the claim, set the deadlines, and email each escalation on the day it is due — and we will not demand money the rules do not owe, because a claim that overreaches gets a one-line refusal.