Thousands of tourists are unable to get money back for trips cancelled due to Covid

Thousands of British holidaymakers are owed £7billion for trips cancelled because of the global coronavirus pandemic with banks and airlines flouting the law by refusing refunds, it was revealed today.

There is growing anger that the Government has not intervened when lenders and travel firms are illegally withholding cash that should be paid within a week for flights and 14 days for package deals.

The Competition and Markets Authority has revealed that four out of five complaints it is getting every day is from British consumers being denied travel refunds and the UK watchdog will soon announce a new crackdown. 

Airlines including British Airways, easyJet, Jet2, Virgin Atlantic, Ryanair and TUI have been accused of flouting the law and pushing customers to accept credit-note vouchers which have little consumer protection and could prove worthless if a carrier went bust.

British Airways said yesterday it is making up to 12,000 workers redundant and last week Richard Branson asked the government to bail out for his struggling Virgin Atlantic company, for around £500million.

 

While travellers who booked breaks using credit cards are also struggling to get cash back from banks, despite Section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act enshrining refunds in law.

Instead lenders have told their own customers they are not eligible for cash refunds, or demanded they pursue the cash from the travel firm first, which is not a legal requirement.

The Association of British Travel Agents (Abta) has even been lobbying ministers to relax rules requiring airlines to issue refunds within a set timeframe — although most have ignored them anyway and appear to have been using underhand behaviour to avoid paying. 

Pensioners Paul and Wendy Cary, from Hampshire, are thousands of pounds out of pocket after their British Airways holiday to Barbados was hit by the travel ban. 




MAILONLINE