Advice? holiday company holding £1200 payment (they cancelled holiday as soon as payment made)

[goodaunty]

has this happened to you? We booked a @lastminute_com
holiday yesterday and paid £1200. The online payment was taken, then, almost immediately we received a notice saying the holiday was not actually available (no flights) but that it would be 5 - 10 days until payments refunded. It was supposed to be a last minute anniversary holiday but we can’t afford to buy another holiday while they have the £1200... it seems criminal that they can take payment for a holiday they can’t provide? And then take 5-10 days to refund our money? Is this legal? Any advice welcome.

I found this

Q. I am expecting a refund, how long does this take?

A. Once a refund has been processed, it may take 3-5 business days. If you requested a refund from the airline directly, it may take 30 to 90 days.

Did you pay on a credit card? Maybe the cc company can help?

Aah thanks for the replies. We paid firstly on a debit card online. Then because that booking was cancelled (no flights) we tried again over the phone with one of LASTMINUTE.COM s phone booking agents who assured us there were flights available for that package we paid a second time, same thing happened payment is showing as pending on the credit card but the booking was again cancelled following payment by last minute , com saying no flights. It’s a package so can’t go direct to the airline because they haven’t got our money, last minute . Com has. The debit card payment has been debited from our account.
Can’t believe they’re still taking payments for packages when they must know there are no seats on some of the flights? Anyone had this with Lastminute before?

Is it worth contacting one of the money columnists in a newspaper. Last minute would not want a load of negative publicity. This does seem like a ruse to take your money and not provide a service. Good luck

Contact „You and Yours“ the BBC Consumer Programme. Pretty sure that would not be the kind of publicity Last Minute.com would be looking for. Also Twitter and other Social Media as phoning will not speed things up.

Thank you! I have tried mirror and daily mail money columnists on your advice and lots of tweets tagging Lastminute so fingers crossed, we were supposed to fly tomorrow!

Do a charge back on your debit card. Contact your bank for details. Probably take more than 5-10 days tho.

The least the could do is just move you to a different package, like doing an exchange in a shop, rather than refunding which takes days so you can book again!

Thanks everyone. We just got half the money back (the payment we made the second time with a phone agent who also reassured us there were definitely flights!) now just the initial online payment to retrieve ... tough lesson learnt. Avoid at all costs..