No Point Booking Through lastminute.com

98dynaglide

lastminute.com are about as bad as they get, along with Virgin Atlantic, the government really do need to step in - such an unreported scandal. 

Westin

Butts said:

Westin said:

Butts said:

bagand96 said:

GJHC said:

I still will not use lastminute.com ever again, I don't believe all travel companies are taking this stance.

I see TUI and Jet2 have been mentioned above, any other recommendations to use for the replacement trip ?

Thanks

The problem, and this isn't a criticism, is that a lot of people don't fully understand what they are buying. 

TUI and Jet2 are proper tour operators. They sell you a holiday under a single contract. They control everything, the flight is usually on their own aircraft or an aircraft chartered by them. They have contracts directly with the hotel, even with the bus company to get you from the airport. This means when trouble happens they can react quickly and decisively as they're in control. They also are more aware of their reputation.

Lastminute.com (and many others like them)  are just an agents. They take a flight with any airline, put a hotel with it (usually booked via an intermediary) and bang... it's a package holiday! It's all fine until something goes wrong. These agents have no control, they're at the mercy of the airlines and hotels/bed banks. 

You do get certain protections even with LM.com you are protected under the Package Travel Regulations and ATOL. But it's not always enough. 

If you book a Package from Lastminute.com (Single Contract) you have exactly the same rights as if it was booked through British Airways Holidays.

Both will give you a near identical ATOL Cerificate, and both are subject to The Package and Linked Travel Regulations 2018. For  what it's worth both are also members of ABTA.

The divergence will occur when something goes wrong in the way the problem is handled. Legally both are classed as The Organiser of the trip and responsible for putting things right irrespective of the source the elements of the package were obtained from. In other words Lastminute.com 's claims to be awaiting refunds from third party's have no relevance to their liability to refund you in the event of a cancellation. As the organiser your contract is with them and they should refund you within 14 Days of a Package Holiday being cancelled. Where they get the money from is their problem and they undertook the contract on this basis.

I have dealt with both of them one refunded without quibble, the other had to be reminded of their legal obligations via a Charge back . No prizes for guessing which was which !!

So I would say to anyone out there dealing with a problematic operator don't listen to legally irrelevant excuses, utilise the legal avenues open to you sooner rather than later. 

I suspect it won’t be.  It will be at best a Package - Multi Contract.

Form personal experience my aborted USA Vacation Flights/Hotel booked through LM.com was Package Single Contract.

Are you sure that was not your British Airways Holidays one?

Whilst I guess not beyond the bounds of possibility that you had an ATOL certificate issued and it showed Lastminute.com as the principle and “Package -Single Contract”, I think by far the majority of LM packaged trips are made up from separate flight and accommodation contracts and would normally shown on ATOL paperwork as “Package - Multi Contract.”

Butts

Westin said:

Butts said:

Westin said:

Butts said:

bagand96 said:

GJHC said:

I still will not use lastminute.com ever again, I don't believe all travel companies are taking this stance.

I see TUI and Jet2 have been mentioned above, any other recommendations to use for the replacement trip ?

Thanks

The problem, and this isn't a criticism, is that a lot of people don't fully understand what they are buying. 

TUI and Jet2 are proper tour operators. They sell you a holiday under a single contract. They control everything, the flight is usually on their own aircraft or an aircraft chartered by them. They have contracts directly with the hotel, even with the bus company to get you from the airport. This means when trouble happens they can react quickly and decisively as they're in control. They also are more aware of their reputation.

Lastminute.com (and many others like them)  are just an agents. They take a flight with any airline, put a hotel with it (usually booked via an intermediary) and bang... it's a package holiday! It's all fine until something goes wrong. These agents have no control, they're at the mercy of the airlines and hotels/bed banks. 

You do get certain protections even with LM.com you are protected under the Package Travel Regulations and ATOL. But it's not always enough. 

If you book a Package from Lastminute.com (Single Contract) you have exactly the same rights as if it was booked through British Airways Holidays.

Both will give you a near identical ATOL Cerificate, and both are subject to The Package and Linked Travel Regulations 2018. For  what it's worth both are also members of ABTA.

The divergence will occur when something goes wrong in the way the problem is handled. Legally both are classed as The Organiser of the trip and responsible for putting things right irrespective of the source the elements of the package were obtained from. In other words Lastminute.com 's claims to be awaiting refunds from third party's have no relevance to their liability to refund you in the event of a cancellation. As the organiser your contract is with them and they should refund you within 14 Days of a Package Holiday being cancelled. Where they get the money from is their problem and they undertook the contract on this basis.

I have dealt with both of them one refunded without quibble, the other had to be reminded of their legal obligations via a Charge back . No prizes for guessing which was which !!

So I would say to anyone out there dealing with a problematic operator don't listen to legally irrelevant excuses, utilise the legal avenues open to you sooner rather than later. 

I suspect it won’t be.  It will be at best a Package - Multi Contract.

Form personal experience my aborted USA Vacation Flights/Hotel booked through LM.com was Package Single Contract.

Are you sure that was not your British Airways Holidays one?

Whilst I guess not beyond the bounds of possibility that you had an ATOL certificate issued and it showed Lastminute.com as the principle and “Package -Single Contract”, I think by far the majority of LM packaged trips are made up from separate flight and accommodation contracts and would normally shown on ATOL paperwork as “Package - Multi Contract.”

Quite sure, it was one of the documents submitted to Capital One as part of my Chargeback.
Reduced their wriggle room to complain they were not the "organiser" and hence liability to cough up when it all went "Pete Tong"

FLUFFYX

I found a telephone number where you do get a response - 0843 8375499, although I think this may be outsourced as the operator could only tell me my request was being processed.  I also had an email customercare@lastminute.com which they were responding to within a couple of hours until recently.
We're due to fly to Lanzarote on 31st Aug and had the same problem - if I cancelled I would lose all my money. Now we've found our hotel won't be open but they haven't even contacted me to let me know.  I've phoned twice and been told I will be sent details of a different hotel I can either accept or refuse but time's running out. We need a new transfer booking from the airport to hotel so don't want to travel without knowing where we're going to be staying. Also we don't want to do the online check-in without knowing that we're definitely going. At the moment we think maybe they've not found us a hotel and the whole holiday could be cancelled. But to not even receive a courtesy email I think is terrible.  I appreciate they must be inundated with traveller requests but it's very stressful.