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Comments:
Registered on Blagger just to respond to this thread.
In January 2011, we bought three flights with Afriqiyah from London-via Tripoli- Johannesburg for departure in October. We stupidly did not book through credit card, via lastminute.com. We have been calling and writing to lastminute as broker of this deal for the past six months. They have put in writing to us that they WILL refund our monies or give us new flights, but when they escalated this to their 'highest in-house complaint dept' (they must have a few!) they retracted this agreement and said our contract as such is with the airline directly. Not with them. In keeping with everyone else's experiences on this thread, we have tried every which way to get hold of Afriqiyah who are completely uncontactable. Of course, they are not contactable. They are not operating, but lastminute still tell everyone to go to the airport desks directly to 'get your money back'. The airport desks have not been manned since March 2011 according to airport officials. Lastminute continue to tell people to visit the Afriqiyah desks at Gatwick. Please do not waste your time or any more of your money in accepting this as your course of action.
At present we have discovered that lastminute flights should be covered by lastminutes ATOL agreement, looking after the interest of customers. In fact lastminute will tell you that all their flights are covered...until you actually read the small print. In the small print it clearly states, all flights are covered by ATOL unless lastminute issue your tickets to you within 24hours of your purchase. This of course is their common practice, to issue tickets immediately. Ironically in this instance lastminute did not issue ours within 24hours. In fact they rang us 4 days post-purchase to ask us for more money as the flight prices they had listed they had listed incorrectly. We paid the extra and then they issued the tickets.
The CAA (Civil Aviation Authority) can investigate any blatant flouting of ATOL agreements in the UK, so we have been in discussion with them, and today we have written to lastminutes CEO, the CAA, and Trading Standards and lastminutes venture capitalist investors based down the road from us in Victoria London to inform them of our situation and ask them for action. We would love to have a face2face rather than be passed from pillar-to-post around Indian call-centres and we are fed up of not being taken seriously. We are also being charged 20pence per minute for hour long weekly calls, another strategy of their in the hope you drop it.
We bought these tickets to take our now 10month old son to meet his family for the 1st time in S Africa to celebrate his first birthday. I know lastminute don't care about this at all, why should they? It's just a business transaction for them. But for us it really matters.
I would love to hear your experiences of trying to resolve your similar situations in case it helps us or our situation can help you in any way. Please update us on your progress.
One exceptionally angry lastminute.com customer. Be aware potential lastminute customers! Book elsewhere
I tried to book a flight to Bangkok to take my family away for the easter holidays with this company i was just about to confirm everything and it said there was a problem with the details please phone the company to resolve this issue, the number was premium rate of course they could'nt speak proper English and they told me i had to wait 2 hours to see if the flight was going to be confirmed to which i said forget it i cant wait 2 hours i want my money back and i'll book it with a different company to which they told me it would take up to 48 hours for the money to be returned to my bank and i said you just told me you had'nt taken any money off me so how can it take 48 hours to put my money back in the bank i asked to speak to the manager who just told me the same rubbish. I phoned my credit card company and they told me it will take up to 10 days for the money to get back i have now missed the flight i wanted. Don't waste your time or money with these jokers
Does lastminute exist or is it a virtual company?
I emailed lastminute at least 16 times in the last 6 days and they never reply to any question except by sending me the same pre written answers to questions that I have not requested.I booked 3 theatre tickets with them last saturday and went to the theatre to collect the tickets to be advised that lastminute had cancelled due to a 'security' fault.I booked the tickets directly with the theatre using the same card where supposedly I had a security fault and have since emailed lastminute to request information about this 'security' fault.All I get is the same dribble from their automated virtual company.
can you imagine booking a holiday with them!
DO NOT USE THIS COMPANY UNLESS YOU WANT TO BE HARRASSED WITH E-MAILS, I USED TO USE THEM A LOT BUT WHEN MY WIFE DIED I STOPPED GOING ON HOLIDAYS. I HAVE ASKED THEM TO "UNSUBSCRIBE" ME MANY TIMES AND ALTHOUGH THEY SAY THEY HAVE REMOVED MY NAME I STILL GET E-MAILS EVERY FEW DAYS. THEY HAVE NO CONTACT DETAILS SO I WOULD URGE YOU NOT TO GO ONTO THEIR WEBSITE UNLESS YOU WANT HARRASSING FOR EVERMORE WITH UNSOLICITATED E-MAILS.IT IS A VERY AGGRESSICE MARKETING COMPANY
Same issues as most other people. LM fail to provide service and then seem incapable of providing a refund. However help may be on the way!
0207 866 4200
Phone number for head office in London. Ask to be put through to the VIP section and someone will deal with the problem and call back.
Wife spent two hours trying to book one night in Hard Rock Hotel, Orlando. on line with this company. Kept getting message" unable to complete booking" Next day rang, (10 pence a minute ). After 24 minutes of giving details of hotel, dates, credit card, names, etc. she was told no room available although it was still stated as so on their site. and was after the phone call.
I am so annoyed and sitting here writing this blagger with no money and no holiday. I wanted to go on holidays this week, but everything was booked up. So I said i'd look on lastminute.com for a city break. I found the perfect location.. Prage for a week in a 4* hotel! So i proceeded to enter my details and credit card number, only so see a warning in red writing that said there were technical difficulties and that i must ring the travel team. On ringing the travel team, the lady I spoke to said she couldn't understand what the problem was! But she thought it was something to do with the flights! So she suggested I book the flights myself, and that she would book the accomodation for me as they get it at a good rate. So she gave me her number to ring her back when i booked the flights.
After a bit of searching, I found flights, and all was going well until I tried to pay for them! I logged onto my online banking only to find out the full price for the flights and hotel had already gone out of my account! So I rang the lady back straight away to tell her the situation!
She told me that she didnt know if the holiday was booked or not, and that I'd have to wait 4 hours to see if had processed. But if it hadn't processed I had to wait at least 2 days to get my money back!! I rang them when the four hours were up, so find a rather rude and unsympathetic guy on the other end of the line. He tried to blame it on the bank, and said that it was out of his hands without even an apology!!!!
So here I am, sitting with no money and no holiday. I can't book anything else until I get my money back... which will be in at least 2 days time... and by then, I've to think about going back to work! I'm so mad, and cannot express how angry I am.NEVER EVER EVER go near this company.
My Friend And I booked a holiday with Lastminute.com yesterday, today we are £200 out of pocket and have no holiday........
The holiday in question was adverised as 7 nights in Thailand with 5* hotel and flights for £675 each (bargain, we though, little did we know).
My Friend purchased the holiday on her debit card, I used my lastminute account. The confirmation came through, ( we were pleased). 7 nights , 5*hotel perfect. We were told that flight details would follow from a third party (Destination2) (The global travel group).
An hour later I recieved an email, I was shocked as i opened and read the contents. It looked like a Spam email , the flight dates were wrong 12 days and 10 nights. The airline carrier was not stated, and the sender "Rob" added that if we wanted transfers to the hotel it would cost an addtional £30 each and that he needed my friend 3 digit security code from her card.
The email did not contain any contact information except for a website, for the global travel group. I googled a number and got through to receptionist,she confirmed that Rob did work for the company and that he would return my call.
Rob, returned my call, I explained that the email looked unprofessional and that the dates were in correct. He told me that I had booked 10 nights with 2 days travelling. which I responded that it was 7 nights and I had the documentation to prove so. He then abruptly told me i was wrong, I offered to send the a copy of the confirmation , he then said no.
I explained that it was booked for 7 nights because work comitments, he refused to accept his error and became increasingly rude. Rob then asked me If I wanted to cancel the holiday, I pointed out that i was not the cardholder and had no legal authority to do so. I asked to wait while I get my friend the card holder to return his call.
I called my friend to explain the situation howvever by this time, rob had already cancelled the holiday ( without the card holders consent and charged her card £200.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I was then sent an email to confirm the cancellation????? I called lastminute (on a premuim number) to complain, this was a complete waste of time. I was transfered to call center in India and spoke to catherine a customer service operator. I explained the problem and forwaded the cancellation email I had recieved, Catherine then proceeded to call me by the name of the agent whom had cancelled the booking!!!
At this point I was LIVID, my holiday had been cancelled due to the incompetence of lastminute.com and they had charged my friends card £200 for there error.
The story gets worse, this morning my friend checked her bank balance and, the company had taken out the entire balance of the holiday. This was after they had send a letter of cancellation and taken out £200.
I have been on the internet and telephone all day trying to get this fiasco resolved, I have had some wonderful advice from ABTA and consumer affairs at Trading standards. They have informed me that LASTMINUTE.COM is in civil breach of contract, hve broken the code of conduct from ABTA and have not complied with:
Supply of Goods and Services Act 1982. Sale and Supply of Goods Act 1994. The Sale and Supply of Goods to Consumers Regulations 2002, Unfair Contract Terms Act 1977 and Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999.
I have tried to contact lastminute, they don't have a complaints procedure set out nor an email address. I have also contacted the global travel group, thay told me that they do not have a complaints procedure, I asked to speak to manager but transfered to an answer phone on 4 occassions.
I have found out that lastminute.com is part of a larger group of companies,
LM Travel Services Ltd
ABTA Number: E7760 & V7780
Address:
39 Victoria Street
LONDON
Greater London
SW1H OEE
Telephone: 0871 472 5116
Fax: 0870 876 1122
ATOL: 3970
Also trading as: www.travelocity.co.uk, Air Tickets Direct, Carhire4less, Flights4less, Hotels4less, Lastminute.com, Travel4less, Travelocity.co.uk
I have found his very intersting piece of information on the lasminute.com website
Package holidays and ABTA
This is a consumer protection bond, which covers tour operators or travel agents. In the unlikely event of company failure the consumer will be protected. lastminute.com does not hold an ABTA licence but the vast majority of package holidays sold on lastminute.com are operated under the ABTA number of our tour operating suppliers and lastminute.com is acting as a disclosed agent on their behalf. We will feature the ABTA number of the supplier in the more info section of each holiday offering.
Strange!! as I have just found the abta number for lastminute.com on the ABTA website ( see above)
I hope that truth will prevail, I have shared my unfortunate experience in hope that you , will not have to endure the misery which I had in the past two days. Beware of this company and you will be enjoy a stress free holiday.
Add a comment about this blagger
Visitors to the site are reminded that the details contained within user comments are uncorroborated and as such should not be read as fact but as the opinion of the person who left the comment.
Comments:
In January 2011, we bought three flights with Afriqiyah from London-via Tripoli- Johannesburg for departure in October. We stupidly did not book through credit card, via lastminute.com. We have been calling and writing to lastminute as broker of this deal for the past six months. They have put in writing to us that they WILL refund our monies or give us new flights, but when they escalated this to their 'highest in-house complaint dept' (they must have a few!) they retracted this agreement and said our contract as such is with the airline directly. Not with them. In keeping with everyone else's experiences on this thread, we have tried every which way to get hold of Afriqiyah who are completely uncontactable. Of course, they are not contactable. They are not operating, but lastminute still tell everyone to go to the airport desks directly to 'get your money back'. The airport desks have not been manned since March 2011 according to airport officials. Lastminute continue to tell people to visit the Afriqiyah desks at Gatwick. Please do not waste your time or any more of your money in accepting this as your course of action.
At present we have discovered that lastminute flights should be covered by lastminutes ATOL agreement, looking after the interest of customers. In fact lastminute will tell you that all their flights are covered...until you actually read the small print. In the small print it clearly states, all flights are covered by ATOL unless lastminute issue your tickets to you within 24hours of your purchase. This of course is their common practice, to issue tickets immediately. Ironically in this instance lastminute did not issue ours within 24hours. In fact they rang us 4 days post-purchase to ask us for more money as the flight prices they had listed they had listed incorrectly. We paid the extra and then they issued the tickets.
The CAA (Civil Aviation Authority) can investigate any blatant flouting of ATOL agreements in the UK, so we have been in discussion with them, and today we have written to lastminutes CEO, the CAA, and Trading Standards and lastminutes venture capitalist investors based down the road from us in Victoria London to inform them of our situation and ask them for action. We would love to have a face2face rather than be passed from pillar-to-post around Indian call-centres and we are fed up of not being taken seriously. We are also being charged 20pence per minute for hour long weekly calls, another strategy of their in the hope you drop it.
We bought these tickets to take our now 10month old son to meet his family for the 1st time in S Africa to celebrate his first birthday. I know lastminute don't care about this at all, why should they? It's just a business transaction for them. But for us it really matters.
I would love to hear your experiences of trying to resolve your similar situations in case it helps us or our situation can help you in any way. Please update us on your progress.
One exceptionally angry lastminute.com customer. Be aware potential lastminute customers! Book elsewhere
Sonic_boom29
I emailed lastminute at least 16 times in the last 6 days and they never reply to any question except by sending me the same pre written answers to questions that I have not requested.I booked 3 theatre tickets with them last saturday and went to the theatre to collect the tickets to be advised that lastminute had cancelled due to a 'security' fault.I booked the tickets directly with the theatre using the same card where supposedly I had a security fault and have since emailed lastminute to request information about this 'security' fault.All I get is the same dribble from their automated virtual company.
can you imagine booking a holiday with them!
0207 866 4200
Phone number for head office in London. Ask to be put through to the VIP section and someone will deal with the problem and call back.
I am so annoyed and sitting here writing this blagger with no money and no holiday. I wanted to go on holidays this week, but everything was booked up. So I said i'd look on lastminute.com for a city break. I found the perfect location.. Prage for a week in a 4* hotel! So i proceeded to enter my details and credit card number, only so see a warning in red writing that said there were technical difficulties and that i must ring the travel team. On ringing the travel team, the lady I spoke to said she couldn't understand what the problem was! But she thought it was something to do with the flights! So she suggested I book the flights myself, and that she would book the accomodation for me as they get it at a good rate. So she gave me her number to ring her back when i booked the flights.
After a bit of searching, I found flights, and all was going well until I tried to pay for them! I logged onto my online banking only to find out the full price for the flights and hotel had already gone out of my account! So I rang the lady back straight away to tell her the situation!
She told me that she didnt know if the holiday was booked or not, and that I'd have to wait 4 hours to see if had processed. But if it hadn't processed I had to wait at least 2 days to get my money back!! I rang them when the four hours were up, so find a rather rude and unsympathetic guy on the other end of the line. He tried to blame it on the bank, and said that it was out of his hands without even an apology!!!!
So here I am, sitting with no money and no holiday. I can't book anything else until I get my money back... which will be in at least 2 days time... and by then, I've to think about going back to work! I'm so mad, and cannot express how angry I am.NEVER EVER EVER go near this company.
The holiday in question was adverised as 7 nights in Thailand with 5* hotel and flights for £675 each (bargain, we though, little did we know).
My Friend purchased the holiday on her debit card, I used my lastminute account. The confirmation came through, ( we were pleased). 7 nights , 5*hotel perfect. We were told that flight details would follow from a third party (Destination2) (The global travel group).
An hour later I recieved an email, I was shocked as i opened and read the contents. It looked like a Spam email , the flight dates were wrong 12 days and 10 nights. The airline carrier was not stated, and the sender "Rob" added that if we wanted transfers to the hotel it would cost an addtional £30 each and that he needed my friend 3 digit security code from her card.
The email did not contain any contact information except for a website, for the global travel group. I googled a number and got through to receptionist,she confirmed that Rob did work for the company and that he would return my call.
Rob, returned my call, I explained that the email looked unprofessional and that the dates were in correct. He told me that I had booked 10 nights with 2 days travelling. which I responded that it was 7 nights and I had the documentation to prove so. He then abruptly told me i was wrong, I offered to send the a copy of the confirmation , he then said no.
I explained that it was booked for 7 nights because work comitments, he refused to accept his error and became increasingly rude. Rob then asked me If I wanted to cancel the holiday, I pointed out that i was not the cardholder and had no legal authority to do so. I asked to wait while I get my friend the card holder to return his call.
I called my friend to explain the situation howvever by this time, rob had already cancelled the holiday ( without the card holders consent and charged her card £200.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I was then sent an email to confirm the cancellation????? I called lastminute (on a premuim number) to complain, this was a complete waste of time. I was transfered to call center in India and spoke to catherine a customer service operator. I explained the problem and forwaded the cancellation email I had recieved, Catherine then proceeded to call me by the name of the agent whom had cancelled the booking!!!
At this point I was LIVID, my holiday had been cancelled due to the incompetence of lastminute.com and they had charged my friends card £200 for there error.
The story gets worse, this morning my friend checked her bank balance and, the company had taken out the entire balance of the holiday. This was after they had send a letter of cancellation and taken out £200.
I have been on the internet and telephone all day trying to get this fiasco resolved, I have had some wonderful advice from ABTA and consumer affairs at Trading standards. They have informed me that LASTMINUTE.COM is in civil breach of contract, hve broken the code of conduct from ABTA and have not complied with:
Supply of Goods and Services Act 1982. Sale and Supply of Goods Act 1994. The Sale and Supply of Goods to Consumers Regulations 2002, Unfair Contract Terms Act 1977 and Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999.
I have tried to contact lastminute, they don't have a complaints procedure set out nor an email address. I have also contacted the global travel group, thay told me that they do not have a complaints procedure, I asked to speak to manager but transfered to an answer phone on 4 occassions.
I have found out that lastminute.com is part of a larger group of companies,
LM Travel Services Ltd
ABTA Number: E7760 & V7780
Address:
39 Victoria Street
LONDON
Greater London
SW1H OEE
Telephone: 0871 472 5116
Fax: 0870 876 1122
ATOL: 3970
Also trading as: www.travelocity.co.uk, Air Tickets Direct, Carhire4less, Flights4less, Hotels4less, Lastminute.com, Travel4less, Travelocity.co.uk
I have found his very intersting piece of information on the lasminute.com website
Package holidays and ABTA
This is a consumer protection bond, which covers tour operators or travel agents. In the unlikely event of company failure the consumer will be protected. lastminute.com does not hold an ABTA licence but the vast majority of package holidays sold on lastminute.com are operated under the ABTA number of our tour operating suppliers and lastminute.com is acting as a disclosed agent on their behalf. We will feature the ABTA number of the supplier in the more info section of each holiday offering.
Strange!! as I have just found the abta number for lastminute.com on the ABTA website ( see above)
I hope that truth will prevail, I have shared my unfortunate experience in hope that you , will not have to endure the misery which I had in the past two days. Beware of this company and you will be enjoy a stress free holiday.
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