Loveholidays has agreed to pay customers £18 million in refunds following a Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) investigation.
The online travel agent has promised the CMA that 44,000 customers will be refunded by the end of March 2021.
Loveholidays had originally told package holiday customers that they were only entitled to a refund for their hotel accommodation and transfers, refusing to refund their air fares unless the airlines refunded Loveholidays first.
In some cases, airlines refused to refund because the flights still went ahead.
The CMA said: “Under the Package Travel Regulations, online travel agents are legally bound to refund customers for package holidays cancelled due to coronavirus, regardless of whether or not the agent has received money back from suppliers, for example airlines.
“Having carefully reviewed loveholidays’ financial information, and how quickly it can realistically repay customers, the CMA has accepted loveholidays’ commitment to repay these customers in full by March 2021 at the latest.”
So far, loveholidays has refunded £7m of the £18 million owed, but 20,000 customers are still waiting for their money back.
