By Euronews Journey
Revealed on
Expedia and Lastminute.com, two of Europe’s largest on-line journey reserving platforms, have pledged to enhance their refund course of and supply clearer details about passenger rights.
The change is designed to assist passengers extra simply declare refunds for these third-party platforms when their flights are cancelled by airways and supply clearer details about what rights passengers have beneath EU regulation.
The transfer follows discussions with the European Fee and the Shopper Safety Cooperation (CPC) Community – a community of nationwide shopper companies answerable for the enforcement of EU shopper safety legal guidelines.
What modifications for travellers?
If you happen to ebook a flight by means of Expedia or LastMinute.com and your airline cancels it, you’ll now be entitled to a refund inside 14 days. This features a seven-day restrict for the airline to return the cash to the journey agent after which one other seven days for the agent to cross this cash on to you.
Beforehand, many travellers skilled lengthy delays, generally lasting months, earlier than seeing their cash returned from cancelled flights. Each firms have mentioned they’ve now cleared any backlogs for reimbursements.
It’s going to even be simpler for passengers to get in contact with these two journey companies. Their contact particulars, together with telephone numbers and electronic mail addresses, can be supplied in or through the assist or ‘contact us’ sections of their web sites.
Each firms have additionally pledged to obviously clarify passenger rights when a flight is cancelled. This contains the suitable to decide on between rerouting or a refund beneath the EU’s air passenger rights guidelines.
You’ll even be clearly knowledgeable of how shopping for a number of legs of a flight by means of completely different carriers may influence your potential to say compensation if only one leg is cancelled. That is notably vital for passengers reserving complicated journeys or on the lookout for funds choices.
When will the modifications take impact?
Lastminute.com has mentioned it started implementing the brand new measures from 1 July 2025 and could have absolutely carried out them by 1 September 2025. Expedia says its present practices already match the commitments it has made.
It’s a part of a broader effort by the EU to enhance buyer protections within the journey sector, they usually be part of three different journey companies, Edreams ODIGEO, Etraveli Group, and Kiwi.com, which dedicated to the identical greatest practices again in 2023.
What are your rights to a refund beneath EU regulation?
Beneath present EU guidelines, if an airline cancels your flight, you’re entitled to rerouting or a full refund inside seven days when requested. You might also be entitled to compensation if the airline is in charge for the cancellation.
However it may be tougher to get a refund in case your flight was booked by means of a third-party platform resembling a web based journey agent. The dedication from Expedia and Lastminute.com goals to bridge that hole, that means you’ll wait a most of 14 days even when a 3rd social gathering is concerned.
In 2023, the European Fee proposed new guidelines for journeys that use multiple type of transport, resembling a journey utilizing each trains and buses. These new laws, if adopted, would come with the identical timeframe for reimbursement through intermediaries for the cancellation of flights.
The proposal for these new guidelines continues to be being negotiated by EU lawmakers.