Lastminute.com only offering vouchers for refunds

itinerant

Hello.

I booked a flight via lastminute and was due to fly mid-April.The outbound flight was with BA and the return flight with Wizzair. I also bought priority and luggage for  the Wizzair return flight - I paid for these extras directly on the Wizzair website using the flight booking code. Both flights were cancelled by the respective airlines. 

lastminute offered me a voucher or travelcredit with them OR an airline refund, at reduced amount. I chose the airline refund, as I preferred cash.

Yesterday, out of the blue, Wizzair refunded the priority and luggage fees (€32, so about £28) to my credit card. However, they have not refunded me the cost of the return ticket.

Does anyone know if the airline cash refund back to my credit card will come from lastminute OR directly from the airlines? (In this case BA and Wizzair).

lastminute are impossible to reach, in fact they asked me in their email not to contact them. 

Thank you. 

Life__Goes__On

Last minute should refund you the plane tickets and that's where you bought them from.
Wizz Air the extras as that where you purchased them from

Butts

itinerant said:

Hello.

I booked a flight via lastminute and was due to fly mid-April.The outbound flight was with BA and the return flight with Wizzair. I also bought priority and luggage for  the Wizzair return flight - I paid for these extras directly on the Wizzair website using the flight booking code. Both flights were cancelled by the respective airlines. 

lastminute offered me a voucher or travelcredit with them OR an airline refund, at reduced amount. I chose the airline refund, as I preferred cash.

Yesterday, out of the blue, Wizzair refunded the priority and luggage fees (€32, so about £28) to my credit card. However, they have not refunded me the cost of the return ticket.

Does anyone know if the airline cash refund back to my credit card will come from lastminute OR directly from the airlines? (In this case BA and Wizzair).

lastminute are impossible to reach, in fact they asked me in their email not to contact them. 

Thank you. 

I wonder if Last Minute amazingly become contactable if you owe them money ?

mda99das

My father booked a trip to Morocco in March and BA sent him a text saying the flight was cancelled. He then received a text from lastminute.com saying that he would be offered a refund. We logged in and typed the code in and they made it very difficult for him to get a full refund. There was 3 pages on trying to convince him to go for a voucher and how fantastic it would be. He booked a package holiday on a credit card. Lastminute have said once BA have sent them a refund, they would refund us. This is totally not on as his contract is with LM.COM NOT BA. What is the best way to proceed 1) contact last minute and be more firm as technically this is a package holiday, or 2) Contact credit card, section 75?

itinerant

Butts said: I wonder if Last Minute amazingly become contactable if you owe them money ?

Why would I owe lastminute money? I paid for the extras directly on the Wizzair site. Lastminute had no involvement in that, and the amount they said they'd refund me doesn't include the extras. In fact lastminute charged me a £30 processing fee. The airline tickets were £380 paid on lastminute (plus £28 for the extras that I paid on Wizz), and lastminute said they would give me back £350 or so, after they deduct their processing fee.

So far I only got the £28 from Wizz and it does make sense, as @Life__Goes__On says, that lastminute would refund me the £350 (once they get it back from Wizz and from British Airways). 

Butts

itinerant said:

Butts said: I wonder if Last Minute amazingly become contactable if you owe them money ?

Why would I owe lastminute money? I paid for the extras directly on the Wizzair site. Lastminute had no involvement in that, and the amount they said they'd refund me doesn't include the extras. In fact lastminute charged me a £30 processing fee. The airline tickets were £380 paid on lastminute (plus £28 for the extras that I paid on Wizz), and lastminute said they would give me back £350 or so, after they deduct their processing fee.

So far I only got the £28 from Wizz and it does make sense, as @Life__Goes__On says, that lastminute would refund me the £350 (once they get it back from Wizz and from British Airways). 

Sorry what I meant was in general communicating with Last Minute for problems. They seem to be almost uncontactable if they owe someone money, but if patrons owe them balances etc I was wondering if they are more forthcoming.

bagand96

mda99das said:

My father booked a trip to Morocco in March and BA sent him a text saying the flight was cancelled. He then received a text from lastminute.com saying that he would be offered a refund. We logged in and typed the code in and they made it very difficult for him to get a full refund. There was 3 pages on trying to convince him to go for a voucher and how fantastic it would be. He booked a package holiday on a credit card. Lastminute have said once BA have sent them a refund, they would refund us. This is totally not on as his contract is with LM.COM NOT BA. What is the best way to proceed 1) contact last minute and be more firm as technically this is a package holiday, or 2) Contact credit card, section 75?

Same issue as many people are facing.  The short answer is that if he has a Package Holiday booking then he is entitled to a refund within 14 days.  Now it's fair to say that almost the whole industry is failing to meet that at the moment which is understandable given the fact the entire industry has stopped.

In normal circumstances then yes, LM should refund and it's up to them to get the refund from the airline.  The problem with the circumstances now is cashflow.  It may well be that LM simply don't have the cash in the business to refund everyone before getting money from the airlines.

Whether you think that is acceptable or not is personal - some people are happy to wait some people are not.  You can contact your credit card, it's likely to be the quickest avenue.  They may try to tell you that you need to wait for LM to refund.  That is not strictly correct, under S75 they are jointly liable and you can initiate a S75 claim.

AnnoyedFeet

Re: 5 days short break in Crete on April 1st with Lastminute
We just received a 'refund credit note' with 3 options. 1) take a credit note with £100 added, 2) take voucher, 3) request refund. The credit note can be converted to cash refund on 31st August. The big issue is that the value only covers the flights, and not the accommodation. Lastminute claim that because the accommodation costs were paid directly to the Hotel, they are not liable. This is ridiculous as we booked a Flight+hotel package directly on the Lastminute website. Just because lastminute process it a certain way (the Hotel through bookings.com, I think), they avoid refunding the hotel. As an added complication the Hotel mailed us to offer a voucher for the hotel valid to 21/12/2021 which whilst helpful, is not what we are legally entitled to.
Lastminute will not answer the phone - call back later message
Do we go to our travel insurance, or to credit card chargeback?
What a mess, and although we may be more fortunate here than others, we would be £720 out of pocket.
Any advice or similar experience and resolution welcome.

Life__Goes__On

"

AnnoyedFeet said:

Re: 5 days short break in Crete on April 1st with Lastminute
We just received a 'refund credit note' with 3 options. 1) take a credit note with £100 added, 2) take voucher, 3) request refund. The credit note can be converted to cash refund on 31st August. The big issue is that the value only covers the flights, and not the accommodation. Lastminute claim that because the accommodation costs were paid directly to the Hotel, they are not liable. This is ridiculous as we booked a Flight+hotel package directly on the Lastminute website. Just because lastminute process it a certain way (the Hotel through bookings.com, I think), they avoid refunding the hotel. As an added complication the Hotel mailed us to offer a voucher for the hotel valid to 21/12/2021 which whilst helpful, is not what we are legally entitled to.
Lastminute will not answer the phone - call back later message
Do we go to our travel insurance, or to credit card chargeback?
What a mess, and although we may be more fortunate here than others, we would be £720 out of pocket.
Any advice or similar experience and resolution welcome.

I would go to credit card   the normally put it as a chargeback first, then if they challenge that (LM) you can make it a Section 75
If the credit card company say you can't claim they are wrong.
Insurance, I will let others advise.

AnnoyedFeet

Life__Goes__On said:

"

AnnoyedFeet said:

Re: 5 days short break in Crete on April 1st with Lastminute
We just received a 'refund credit note' with 3 options. 1) take a credit note with £100 added, 2) take voucher, 3) request refund. The credit note can be converted to cash refund on 31st August. The big issue is that the value only covers the flights, and not the accommodation. Lastminute claim that because the accommodation costs were paid directly to the Hotel, they are not liable. This is ridiculous as we booked a Flight+hotel package directly on the Lastminute website. Just because lastminute process it a certain way (the Hotel through bookings.com, I think), they avoid refunding the hotel. As an added complication the Hotel mailed us to offer a voucher for the hotel valid to 21/12/2021 which whilst helpful, is not what we are legally entitled to.
Lastminute will not answer the phone - call back later message
Do we go to our travel insurance, or to credit card chargeback?
What a mess, and although we may be more fortunate here than others, we would be £720 out of pocket.
Any advice or similar experience and resolution welcome.

I would go to credit card   the normally put it as a chargeback first, then if they challenge that (LM) you can make it a Section 75
If the credit card company say you can't claim they are wrong.
Insurance, I will let others advise.

Thanks for the assistance. On checking our credit card bill, Lastminute split the charges when we booked into a payment to them for the flights and a payment to the hotel for the accommodation, although our booking (ie contract of supply) was directly with lastminute. I suspect the credit card option could then be more difficult.
When is a package holiday a package holiday (legally covered) and when is it not???
 customercare@lastminute.com have replied that they will investigate and I will share the outcome as I assume this would impact a great many others who booked Flight+Hotel.