Lastminute.com will pay out £7m in refunds for cancelled holidays
Holiday firm Lastminute.com has committed to paying out £7m in refunds to customers who had their trips cancelled due to the coronavirus pandemic.
The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) this morning revealed that over 9,000 people were currently awaiting payouts from the booking site.
Lastminute.com has now agreed to pay these out as soon as possible and by 31 January at the very latest.
The firm is one of over a hundred such companies that the CMA has been investigating after receiving complaints from customers.
Legally holiday firms are obliged to refund customers for cancellations within 14 days, but due to the number of holidays that were axed this year due to the pandemic many firms simply could not keep up with the rate at which they were meant to pay customers back.
The watchdog’s chief executive Andrea Coscelli said: “Online travel agents have a legal responsibility to provide prompt refunds to customers whose holidays have been cancelled due to coronavirus – irrespective of whether the agent received refunds from airlines and accommodation providers.
Our action today means that customers whose holidays were cancelled by lastminute.com will receive their money back without undue delay.
“The CMA is continuing to investigate package holiday firms following concerns that people are not getting the refunds they’re entitled to when bookings can’t go ahead because of the pandemic.
“If we find that businesses are breaching consumer protection law, we will not hesitate to take further action.”
The CMA has already secured similar commitments from companies such as Tui and Virgin Holidays.
The travel sector has been one of the hardest hit by the pandemic, which has seen air travel dwindle to historically low levels.