But sometimes a single number tells it better than any of them.

The number is six. As in six rupees.

According to the Morpheus Research short-seller report on MakeMyTrip published on March 30, 2026, an Indian journalist documented in detail the process of requesting a flight cancellation through MakeMyTrip's Goibibo platform. The journalist contacted the airline directly after initiating the cancellation request and obtained written confirmation that the airline had issued a refund to Goibibo of Rs 1,477.

Thirteen days after his initial cancellation request, Goibibo initiated a refund to the journalist of Rs 6.

Six rupees from a confirmed Rs 1,477 airline refund represents a return of less than half of one percent of the amount the airline had sent to Goibibo on the customer's behalf. The journalist documented the entire process on X with screenshots of the airline's refund confirmation and Goibibo's Rs 6 transfer, according to the Morpheus report.

This Is Not One Story. It Is a Pattern.

Morpheus Research does not present the Rs 6 incident as an anomaly. It presents it as one of the most visible data points in a systematic pattern of refund withholding that the report documents across multiple platforms, multiple airlines, and multiple years of customer complaints.

A second example in the report involves a customer whose IndiGo flight was cancelled. IndiGo issued a full refund. MakeMyTrip passed on 40 percent of it and retained 60 percent. The customer posted about the experience on X with documentation, according to Morpheus.

A third example involves a SpiceJet flight cancellation where SpiceJet offered the customer a refund. MakeMyTrip passed on less than half of the amount, according to a LinkedIn post cited by Morpheus in which the customer described MakeMyTrip holding onto customer refunds in what they called a black box.

A fourth example from the report involves a journalist whose flight was rescheduled for an entire day earlier than booked. When she went to cancel the rescheduled flight, MakeMyTrip retained its seat selection fee, its convenience fee, and a cancellation fee. The journalist documented the experience publicly in January 2026.

The Black Box Problem

The systemic nature of these refund issues points to what Morpheus Research characterises as a structural problem rather than a customer service failure. When an airline cancels or reschedules a flight, it issues a refund to the OTA through which the ticket was booked. The OTA then passes that refund to the customer. The customer has no direct visibility into how much the airline actually refunded to the OTA. They only see what the OTA chooses to pass on.

This information asymmetry is the black box that the SpiceJet customer described. The customer cannot independently verify whether MakeMyTrip received Rs 1,477 from the airline unless they contact the airline directly, as the journalist in the Morpheus report did. Most customers do not contact the airline directly. They simply wait for the refund from the OTA and accept whatever arrives, often unaware that a significantly larger amount was sent to the OTA on their behalf.

The journalist in the Rs 6 case did contact the airline directly. He received written confirmation of the Rs 1,477 airline refund. He posted both documents side by side. The gap between what the airline sent and what the customer received was Rs 1,471, representing 99.6 percent of the refund amount that the OTA retained.

Legal Cases and Consumer Court Orders

The refund problem is not confined to social media complaints. Morpheus Research documents a series of legal cases in which Indian courts have found MakeMyTrip guilty of deficient services and ordered it to pay refunds that the company had previously refused.

In one case, MakeMyTrip was fined for deficient services and giving false assurances in connection with a refund dispute that arose from a cancelled flight in March 2020, with the customer unable to obtain the refund without litigation that took years to resolve.

In a second case, MakeMyTrip was ordered to refund a customer after cancelling his honeymoon trip one day before his scheduled departure. Prior to the court order, MakeMyTrip had, according to the Indian Express, outrightly refused to refund the customer.

In a third case, MakeMyTrip was found guilty of deficiency in service for failing to pass along a full refund to a customer when his flight was cancelled, according to The Telegraph India.

Morpheus notes that while any individual penalty in these cases may be relatively small, the pattern of cases and the consistency of the allegations points toward a systemic issue with how MakeMyTrip handles refunds rather than isolated errors.

What 1,816 Reviews Say

MakeMyTrip's TrustPilot profile, with 1,816 reviews at the time of the Morpheus report, averages 1.2 stars out of five. TrustPilot's AI summary of those reviews, cited by Morpheus, describes considerable problems with refunds including long delays and the outright denial of customers getting their money back.

For context, 1.2 stars on TrustPilot represents an extraordinarily low consumer satisfaction rating. Morpheus acknowledges that negative reviews are common for OTAs as a category. The specific concentration of refund-related complaints and the AI summary's explicit identification of outright denial as a documented theme distinguishes MakeMyTrip's profile from the generalised dissatisfaction that any large consumer platform attracts.

The Go Air Dimension

The refund problem has a dimension that goes beyond individual customer complaints into structural financial risk. Morpheus Research documents that MakeMyTrip has a $20 million receivable from Go Air, the insolvent Indian airline that went into liquidation in 2025. Half of that receivable, approximately $10 million, represents refunds owed to customers for flights booked through MakeMyTrip on an airline that no longer exists.

Every other OTA peer has written off its Go Air exposure entirely. An executive at competitor Easy Trip told Morpheus: "Everyone has written them off. And there's no chance that those will be recovered." MakeMyTrip has provisioned only half of its Go Air exposure and has left the customer refund portion unaddressed in its accounts.

In a liquidation process, passengers are among the last creditors to be paid, behind liquidation costs, financial creditors, employee salaries, and government taxes. The customers who booked Go Air flights through MakeMyTrip and are owed refunds are at the back of a queue that has nothing at the front of it.

The journalist who documented his Rs 6 refund posted the evidence publicly. The airline's Rs 1,477 refund confirmation was there for anyone to see next to Goibibo's Rs 6 transfer. He asked MakeMyTrip to explain the difference. The Morpheus report does not record a satisfactory response.

Six rupees. That is what remained of Rs 1,477 after passing through India's dominant online travel platform. And according to Morpheus Research, the airline had already done its part.

All allegations in this article are sourced from the Morpheus Research short-seller report on MakeMyTrip published March 30, 2026. Morpheus Research holds a short position in MakeMyTrip shares and profits if the stock price declines. MakeMyTrip has not responded to the report at time of publication. Business Upturn has not independently verified the allegations. This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial or investment advice.