The UK competition watchdog has said it will take legal action against Lastminute.com unless it pays more than £1 million in refunds within the next seven days to customers it still owes for cancelled package holidays because of the coronavirus pandemic.
On December 1, 2020, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) announced that lastminute.com had signed formal undertakings which committed it to pay out over £7 million to more than 9,000 customers when their holidays were cancelled due to the Covid-19 crisis.
Customers affected were due to get their money back by January 31, 2021 at the latest, however, lastminute.com still owes over £1 million to 2,600 customers.
The company has also failed to meet its ongoing commitment to repay all customers entitled to a refund within 14 days of their package holiday being cancelled on or after December 3, 2020.
The CMA also said that lastminute.com told some package holiday customers to go directly to their airline to get the cost of their flight back - a breach of its commitments and against its obligations under the Package Travel Regulations.
The CMA has informed lastminute.com that it will take court action if it does not repay the outstanding refunds within 7 days.
To avoid court action, lastminute.com must also ensure that customers who book their package holidays from now on will receive a full refund within 14 days where they are legally entitled to their money back following the cancellation of their package holiday.
Andrea Coscelli, Chief Executive of the CMA, said: “It is wholly unacceptable that thousands of lastminute.com customers are still waiting for full refunds for package holidays despite the commitments the company signed with us.
“We take breaches of commitments extremely seriously. If lastminute.com does not comply with the law and pay people their outstanding refunds quickly, we will take the company to court.”
The announcement follows significant action by the CMA in relation to holiday cancellations during the Covid-19 pandemic.
The CMA has written to over 100 package holiday firms to remind them of their obligations to comply with consumer protection law, and has already secured refund commitments from Virgin Holidays, TUI UK, Sykes Cottages and Vacation Rentals.
Further information can be found on the GOV.UK website here.
