I feel I was ripped off..
--------FOLLOW UP---------
Many thanks for responding to my review.
Please note that the full flex was cancelled and refunded immediately before the booking cancellation because the amount of refund would have been even less (I would have lost approx £400) hence it was totally useless, at least in this particular circumstance.
I also note your comment in regards to terms and conditions. I never said that what your company did was against the terms and conditions otherwise it would have been illegal and it would be a matter for the courts.
I strongly feel however that to simply abide to T&Cs, especially for companies who are aiming to excel in their customer satisfaction, is definitely not good enough.
The best and most successful scams are perfectly legal and in compliance with T&C's.
I was ripped of a cost which I was never told during the booking (handling fees) so my complaint is about the lack of transparency, and also of understanding and empathy given that I called you back to cancel a few seconds from my booking as I immediately realised the obvious mistake.
I reiterate that I would be perfectly happy to pay for the fixed penalties, which seem proportionate, whereas the handling fees amounted to almost 10% of the overall booking cost, therefore in my view totally disproportionate considering my request to cancel happened immediately.
Most companies today (including most of your competitors) allow for a 24 hour cooling off period which is very reasonable in order to allow for simple mistakes such as this.
I am still hoping that you will reconsider as it would be a really nice gesture of goodwill.
----- ORIGINAL REVIEW-------
I feel I was ripped off by lastminute.com.
I made a simple mistake while booking for flights for a trip due in 6 months and I called them straight away (less than 10 minutes from the booking). They called EasyJet which immediately agreed to cancel and fully reimburse the flights with a nominal penalty (37 EUR), whereas they initially added their own penalty (30 EUR).
The bit that really annoyed me was that they added on top another ~£100 for "commissions", an amount which was never mentioned nor detailed during the purchase and not even provided in the confirmation email.
I would have been perfectly happy to pay for the penalties, but these "commissions" feel like a real rip-off given my request to cancel only a few minutes after the booking and the circumstance that this unspecified commission amount was never quantified during the purchase. All in all a major rip-off. With this excuse of the commissions they could charge anyone absolutely any amount as only they know what these commissions are and the amount. A total lack of transparency and fairness. I had even purchased their "full flex" insurance, another useless feature that luckily they cancelled and reimbursed as I would have lost almost 40% of the booking value if I wanted to use it... "Full flex"... What a joke!!!
In the end I lost anyway over 10% over the initial booking value. The airline (EasyJet) by comparison behaved in a much more correct and transparent way. I will never use this company again and will try to avoid third parties in any way in the future!!!
Stay away and book directly with the airlines!!!
I am really sorry to hear about the issues that you have experienced with this booking.
I have verified the booking details and I can see that the cancellation for the booking was done as per the terms and conditions. The refund was initiated as per the fare rules of the airlines after charging the handling as mentioned in our terms and conditions along with the airline administration fee. I would like to inform you that as you did not wanted to add the full flex assistance package, hence the same was cancelled and the refund was also initiated for it.
Please accept my apologies for the inconvenience caused.
Kind regards,
Lastminute.com