CMA threatens lastminute.com with legal action over failure to refund over £1m

Holiday specialist lastminute.com has been slammed by the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) for failing to meet a key deadline.

At the end of last year, the firm committed to pay out over £7m to more than 9,000 customers affected by the pandemic and subsequent travel disruption.

However, the CMA has announced that the firm missed its deadline of January 31, with over £1m of refunds still outstanding.

In addition, it has emerged that the company advised some package holiday customers to go directly to their airline to get the cost of their flight back - breaching both its commitments to the CMA and obligations under the Package Travel Regulations.

Andrea Coscelli, chief executive of the CMA, commented: “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.”

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