Lastminute.com refund help

jimbobmagee

Hi. 

Back in March 2020 me and 8 others were supposed to go to Las Vegas for my brothers stag do. The best man booked through lastminute.com. Unfortunately the inevitable happened where a week before we were supposed to go Trump enforced a travel ban for the UK due to COVID 19. This resulted in our trip being cancelled. I had no luck with my travel insurance, they would not listen to me as it was a group booking, so would not pay out for my part, which was a little frustrating. 

However the best man has tried and tried since March 2020 to get anything out of Lastminute.com with regards to refund or credit. I believe he spoke to someone on the phone back in April 2020 and they said they would credit us back. However going further than that and actually receiving any refund has been non existent. We saw an article that the CMA had given thema deadline to pay any outstanding refunds, but that deadline has definitely passed now and no one has contacted us. The best man has asked for call backs and has tried ringing their customer service to no avail. What annoys me when I have searched through social media is that they are still accepting bookings from customers, so still taking money. 

Alot of the part are now getting very frustrated as the whole trip cost over €6000 and within this time frame myself and another party goer has since had children so the refund would help us both with the financial burden. 

Is there any suggestions with what we do next, or who we can contact? As lastminute.com have not been helpful at all.

Any help would be great! 

James

Westin

Unless the airline offered a travel waiver, or cancelled the flight, then this would be a travel insurance issue.  Did you have your own individual travel insurance policy? 

eskbanker

Westin said:

Unless the airline offered a travel waiver, or cancelled the flight, then this would be a travel insurance issue.  Did you have your own individual travel insurance policy? 

This would apply for a flight-only booking, but if the trip was booked as a package including accommodation then Lastminute are obliged to refund if they cancelled it, or if the travellers cancelled citing regulation 12 of the Package Travel Regulations 2018 (not being allowed into the country clearly qualifying as 'unavoidable and extraordinary circumstances occurring at the place of destination'), so insurers will typically reject claims on the basis that the costs are recoverable elsewhere, however difficult that recovery might actually be....

Alan_Bowen

Begin by contacting the airline and see if a request for a refund was ever made by LM. Some airlines were relatively good, some like Virgin didn't even begin to refund for 7 months as they had no money but if no request was made, then LM may not be sitting on the cash. There appears to be only one phone call by the person who made the booking, you need to create a written trail in order to take this further, so send a formal request for a full refund, I suspect the phone call made at the height of the crisis has simply never been actioned

mattyprice4004

There’s a lot of ifs and buts - if it was a simple package holiday you should be refunded, but if he booked individual components himself then it’s nowhere near as simple. 

Which was it? 

baza52

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6169216/travel-insurance-claim-reject#latest

Thrugelmir

Are your mates still intending to travel? 

Alan_Bowen

They were intending to travel in March 2020 so I imagine we have gone past the stag night, wedding and maybe at first child stage by now!

eskbanker

2021 thread:

jimbobmagee said:

I had no luck with my travel insurance, they would not listen to me as it was a group booking

2020 thread:

jimbobmagee said:

Once we had confirmation of cancellation from the holiday company I set about doing the claim. I finally received the outcome of my claim last month and they have rejected this due to it being a package holiday and they would not pay out for my part

As per my earlier post, the package organiser is on the hook for refunding a package holiday it cancelled, so insurers won't usually pay out if the cost is recoverable from the service provider....