After months of breaking the law on holiday refunds, Lastminute.com was investigated by the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) in December. It agreed to pay all outstanding package holiday refunds that were cancelled on or before 2 December by the end of January 2021.

But despite this, Which? has seen reports from several customers who still hadn’t received a full refund after the deadline had passed.

At the time of the CMA’s intervention, Lastminute.com owed more than £7m in refunds for holidays cancelled on or before 2 December. Although it seemed to be paying back customers for the hotel portion of their trips, Which? found evidence that it had not returned the cost of cancelled flights to some of its customers by the deadline.

Under the Package Travel and Linked Travel Regulations 2018, if a package holiday is cancelled by the provider, the customer is legally entitled to a full refund within 14 days. This includes the cost for both travel and accommodation.

Which? has shared its findings with the CMA, and is calling for it to take appropriate enforcement action against the online travel agent.

Rory Boland, editor of Which? Travel, said: “Despite being given ample time to return all outstanding refunds to customers – as well as clear instructions regarding its liability for refunding both accommodation and flight costs – Lastminute.com has failed to meet this commitment to the regulator. This is perhaps unsurprising to its customers, given it was voted the UK’s worst accommodation booking site in our latest survey, faring little better when it was ranked for flight bookings.

“The CMA was right to intervene to demand action from the online travel agent, but after failing some of its customers once again, tougher measures need to be taken. The CMA should uncover how many customers were not refunded in time and take appropriate action against Lastminute.com, sending a clear message that this kind of behaviour is unacceptable.”

A statement from Lastminute.com said: “Firstly we’d like to start by saying that the refund process has been a very complex and difficult process due to the length and severity of the ongoing pandemic and frequent changes in the travel advice rules. These conditions not only impact us but the entire travel industry.

“Throughout this very challenging year, our customers have remained our number one priority, and we at Lastminute.com continue our commitment to dedicating our resources to helping them with their requests, whether it’s involuntary or voluntary cancellations, re-booking to new destinations or booking new holidays.

“Each customer request is unique, and often requiring a human touch-point and we’ve been working hard to get the money processed back through the system and into our customer’s pockets as quickly as possible.”

A CMA spokesperson said: “CMA action led to Lastminute.com committing to pay out over £7m to customers waiting for money back. They must now report to us on how they are complying with the commitments they signed up to and the deadlines agreed. Should it become clear that they have breached these undertakings we will consider further action.”

Other travel agents who have failed to refund customers according to the law including Teletext Holidays which the CMA is currently investigating.