Loveholidays says it is “rapidly accelerating” hotel and transfer refunds, amid a raft of complaints from consumers about delays during the Covid-19 crisis.
The online travel agency said it has so far actioned refund requests totalling more than £47 million, excluding the cost of refunds from airlines.
Martin Lewis, founder of the Moneysavingexpert.com website, has written about the online travel agency, saying “Loveholidays customers complain of refund hell”.
He wrote: “The name Loveholidays has become a scourge of many travellers during the pandemic, as droves of customers are still in the dark about their refunds.
“The firm sits alongside Virgin and Ryanair as the big names with the worst feedback for refunds.
“In our 70 best and worst firms for travel refunds survey, it had a net rating of -81, and just 4% of Loveholidays customers whose holiday had been cancelled and who responded to our survey said they’d received a full refund (though the firm says it has refunded over 25% of affected customers).”
A Loveholidays spokesperson said: “We are rapidly accelerating hotel and transfer refunds – currently moving payment dates to a four-week timeframe from the refund request and we are working towards delivering a two-week timeframe which we aim to have in place next week.
“We are also streamlining the refund process so that customers can submit their refund requests online only.
“We are refunding land elements, with flight refunds to follow when received from the airlines.
“This is because airlines are all operating to different refund policies and timelines.
“When we receive cash refunds from airlines, we are committed to passing these on to our customers within a maximum of five working days.”
It has also contacted more than 20,000 customers with refund credit notes due to expire at the end of July to bring forward their refund payments (excluding flights) and the majority of these have been refunded.
The spokesperson added: “We do have some challenges with customers whose credit cards have been cancelled or have expired (representing approximately 10% of those whose refunds we have tried to action to date) and which therefore require a manual process to resolve and would like to encourage customers to ensure they have provided updated payment information via the secure Manage My Booking section on our website.
“We are also putting a team in place to assist with these payments that cannot be automated due to these credit card issues.”