Last Minute. Com Cancellation Charges

Butts · 7 December 2019 at 8:23AM

I have made a booking for Flights and Hotel for myself and my son to Florida next year with Last Minute.

I only had to pay a 10% deposit with the balance payable a month before we travel next August - Black Friday deposit deal.

I was quite shocked at perusing their Cancellation Charges. At 84 days plus out they claim to be able to charge 100% of the Accomodation Charge and virtually the same on The Airline Component.

Thinking these charges seemed a bit excessive I looked for some Legal Guidance in this area.

According to the Package Travel and Linked Travel Regulations 2018..

Any termination fee has to be "Reasonable and Justifiable"

I can't see how Last Minutes fees would satisfy this test. For example the accommodation they have booked is available on Booking.Com with no prepayment required and free cancellation up to the day before arrival.

I'm not sure what sort of arrangement they have with BA but as the price of our air tickets has nearly doubled in the week since I booked they would be easy to resell 8 months out.

Has anyone had any experience of challenging these "exit fees" with Last Minute as I can't seem to find any anecdotal evidence of Court Cases.

Caz3121 · 7 December 2019 at 8:57AM

you need to look at what you agreed to when you made the booking.
Many hotels offer both free cancellation rates and non-refundable (cheaper) rates - it is likely they booked the latter
Fully refundable flights to Florida with BA are over £2k per person (if you book a non-refundable flight it does not matter if you cancel 2 hours before or 8 months before it is still non-refundable)
As you would have been told in advance (before being able to make the booking) that both hotel and flight were non-refundable and accepted that I cannot see how a court claim would work
It looks like the Lastminute.com fee for processing the cancellation is £30 (which is likely deemed as reasonable)
you should have seen something like this as part of the booking process
cancellation policies
Here you'll find all the information regarding the cancellation costs for your package. Please note that you cannot cancel individual parts of your booking - you may only cancel the entire booking. If you cancel your booking, you will still be charged a handling fee for our work in carrying out your cancellation, and any cancellation fees charged by our providers:
Hotel
The cancellation fee is 100% of the hotel booking cost. However, you may be entitled, where applicable, to the reimbursement of certain costs by the provider.
Flight
The cancellation fee is 100% of the flight cost. However, you may be entitled, where applicable, to the reimbursement of certain costs by the airline.
Additional products
Each product has its own cancellation costs, detailed in the conditions of purchase for that particular product.
If you do not wish to travel you could hold off in the hope that there is an airline schedule change in the future that possibly allows you to cancel for refund

Butts · 7 December 2019 at 9:37AM

Caz3121 wrote: »

you need to look at what you agreed to when you made the booking.
Many hotels offer both free cancellation rates and non-refundable (cheaper) rates - it is likely they booked the latter
Fully refundable flights to Florida with BA are over £2k per person (if you book a non-refundable flight it does not matter if you cancel 2 hours before or 8 months before it is still non-refundable)
As you would have been told in advance (before being able to make the booking) that both hotel and flight were non-refundable and accepted that I cannot see how a court claim would work
It looks like the Lastminute.com fee for processing the cancellation is £30 (which is likely deemed as reasonable)
you should have seen something like this as part of the booking process
cancellation policies
Here you'll find all the information regarding the cancellation costs for your package. Please note that you cannot cancel individual parts of your booking - you may only cancel the entire booking. If you cancel your booking, you will still be charged a handling fee for our work in carrying out your cancellation, and any cancellation fees charged by our providers:
Hotel
The cancellation fee is 100% of the hotel booking cost. However, you may be entitled, where applicable, to the reimbursement of certain costs by the provider.
Flight
The cancellation fee is 100% of the flight cost. However, you may be entitled, where applicable, to the reimbursement of certain costs by the airline.
Additional products
Each product has its own cancellation costs, detailed in the conditions of purchase for that particular product.
If you do not wish to travel you could hold off in the hope that there is an airline schedule change in the future that possibly allows you to cancel for refund

When I go into my Last Minute account and click on the icon to modify my booking or cancel it it won't let me as it comes up "booking not confirmed" although the e-mail I got from them said it was confirmed - interesting ? If it is not confirmed how can there be any cancellation charges ?

I can't agree with you on the cancellation charges as the whole spirit of the legislation is to stop operators profiting from their clients. This far out I don't think it would cost them anything to cancel my booking. The Hotel charges listed are exactly what booking .com are offering the public with no pre-payment and free cancellation up to the day before. Surely being a large operator they would get even more favourable terms.

Again with the Air Ticket I'm not sure how it works but I'm sure it could be resold 8 months out.

I have only paid £400 upfront so there is no way they have actually handed any money to anyone at this stage.

cubegame · 7 December 2019 at 10:31AM

Do you foresee a need to cancel?

Have you already bought travel insurance in case you do need to cancel?

Butts · 7 December 2019 at 11:03AM

cubegame wrote: »

Do you foresee a need to cancel?

Have you already bought travel insurance in case you do need to cancel?

Indeed, reading accounts of their performance when things go wrong on Trust Pilot/Trip Advisor I am a little anxious to say the least. If it was an odd night at a Hotel I wouldn't be worried. I appreciate Travel Insurance would not cover me for changing your mind.

I have just experienced their Indian Call Centre for the first time which a source of many of the complaints and was unable to get a simple question satisfactorily answered.

I had a confirmation e-mail that listed the components of my package accurately informing me when the balance had to be paid by.

On accessing my online account the facility is there to make the final payment and various other bit's and pieces such as book baggage, cancel booking, amend passengers etc. However there is an icon entitled "Why can't I modify my booking" on pressing that it comes up "changes cannot be made until the booking is confirmed"

One rather contradicts the other and I was attempting to solicit from the individual whether the booking was confirmed or not .

To me it would seem what they are doing is not actually confirming your booking until you have paid the balance. This leads me to believe a situation could arise where you make the final payment a month before you go and suddenly the promised packaged is unavailable.

In my view this would aid my case if I wished to cancel something they are not sure whether they have confirmed or not !!

Perhaps someone who has booked a similar package with them could post details and assuage my worries.

The_Fat_Man_Hatton · 13 December 2019 at 8:20PM

I had to cancel a flight recently about 30 minutes prior to the scheduled departure time. At first lastminute told me by email I would get about 10% of my money back and that I had call them to confirm I accepted the offer within 2 hours or I would get nothing.

I called them and told them I was accepting the offer but when the agent said "so I can confirm you are accepting the offer made by email" I thought it wasn't right. So I asked him his name and told him my phone was recording the call and that I accepted the offer but only under duress as the time frame given to accept was unreasonable and that I would check latter what my rights were.
I received an email about 20 minutes later informing me I would receive a refund of around 85% but that it would take up to 2 months to get the funds.
When making the first call I had no idea if I was entitled to get any money back but I got the impression they were making it up as they went along. We will see if I get the money without a fight but at least I have the confirmation email.

mattyprice4004 · 13 December 2019 at 8:30PM

Why do you assume you'd be able to cancel at all?
Travel tickets etc are exempt from most cancellation rights, and it's up to them what they offer.

The time to check cancellation policies is before booking.

The_Fat_Man_Hatton · 13 December 2019 at 11:25PM

mattyprice4004 wrote: »

Why do you assume you'd be able to cancel at all?
Travel tickets etc are exempt from most cancellation rights, and it's up to them what they offer.

The time to check cancellation policies is before booking.

I booked by phone and when on hold the recorded message said you can cancel or rearrange at. anytime. Plus I did say at the time of making the call I didn't know if I was entitled to anything back all with such a late cancellation.
The point remains I have two emails from them just minutes apart with wildly differing cancellation charges. I thought it might help someone else to know they seemed to be winging it. Thanks for your input though.

koalakoala · 15 December 2019 at 9:46AM

That was a quick and expensive change of mind !

The_Fat_Man_Hatton · 20 December 2019 at 3:34PM

I said I had to cancel 30 minutes before departure. Not a booked a flight and 30 minutes later decided I didn't fancy it

Just received an email from them confirming they have deposited the funds back to my card. I've not bothered checking but my guess is I'm getting back what I'm entitled to and their original offer would have seen them pocket the difference from the airline.

Voyager2002 · 20 December 2019 at 5:47PM

The_Fat_Man_Hatton wrote: »

I said I had to cancel 30 minutes before departure. Not a booked a flight and 30 minutes later decided I didn't fancy it

Just received an email from them confirming they have deposited the funds back to my card. I've not bothered checking but my guess is I'm getting back what I'm entitled to and their original offer would have seen them pocket the difference from the airline.

If you cancelled 30 minutes before departure you would presumably be a the airport! I cannot imagine how you could have booked just 30 minutes before that. And if you had not booked a flight then I cannot imagine what it was that you cancelled.

Last Minute. Com Cancellation Charges

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