LOVEHOLIDAYS TO PAY £18m REFUNDS
FASHION PAIR TAKE VIRUS HIT
MORE than 40,000 people will receive refunds totalling over £18million for trips cancelled due to the pandemic.
The Competition and Markets Authority was forced to intervene after receiving hundreds of complaints from LoveHolidays customers.
The regulator says when people contacted LoveHolidays to request a refund they were told they would only get their money for flights once the firm had received refunds from airlines.
LoveHolidays was reportedly locked in a dispute with Ryanair over who was responsible for refund delays.
Now LoveHolidays has signed a formal commitment meaning 44,000 affected customers will get full refunds by March at the latest. So far £7million has been reimbursed. The CMA said it can take the firm to court if it fails to repay by then.
Andrea Coscelli, CMA chief executive, said: “Travel agents have a legal responsibility to make prompt refunds to customers whose holidays have been cancelled due to coronavirus.
“Our action means LoveHolidays’ customers have certainty over when they will receive their money back. We are continuing to investigate package travel firms and where we find evidence that businesses are breaching consumer law, we’ll not hesitate to take action.”
A Loveholidays spokesman said: “The pandemic has brought unprecedented disruption to the entire tourism sector and we appreciate the CMA’s acknowledgement of the he extraordinary extraordis pressures faced by package holiday ay companies. compae We’ve been working tirelessly ssly since March to do everything verything we can to ensure sure our customers receive eceive their money.”
High street fashion giants H&M and Zara owner Inditex have ve revealed new slowdowns due to second wave restrictions.
Swedish firm H&M said it sent sales plunging by more than a fifth in the three months to the end of November.
Before that, it had seen a strong recovery between June and August. Overall full year net sales were down 20% to £17billion.
Spanish rival Inditex also said sales fell to 81% of the previous year levels in November. The firm reported net profits of £789million for the three months to October 31, down from £1.07bn in 2019.