The UK’s competition body has warned travel company Lastminute.com that it faces legal action if it does not pay refunds outstanding to customers within seven days.

In December, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said Lastminute.com had signed formal undertakings committing it to paying out more than £7 million to more than 9,000 customers whose holidays were cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic by 31 January.

But the authority said today (12 February) that the company still owes more than £1 million to 2,600 customers.

'Wholly unacceptable'

The CMA added that the company had also failed to meet a commitment to repay, on or after 3 December 2020, all customers entitled to a refund within 14 days of their package holiday being cancelled.

“On top of this, Lastminute.com told some package holiday customers to go directly to their airline to get the cost of their flight back,” the authority said, adding that this was in breach of its commitments and against its obligations under the package travel rules.

“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,” said CMA chief executive Andrea Coscelli.