Holiday Letting Company Changes Refund Policy Following Complaints

By Kristen Zanoni | June 30, 2020

Category: Legal News

Holiday letting company Vacation Rentals, owner of Hoseasons and Cottage.com, has agreed to give customers refunds for holiday stays cancelled because of the COVID-19 pandemic after receiving thousands of complaints.

Cottages.com is a holiday booking platform that connects U.K. homeowners with holiday-goers looking for a rental.

Back in April, the holiday rental website was refusing to issue refunds during the travel ban, according to The Guardian. Despite the COVID-19 crisis and global travel bans, the website’s refund policy only issued time-sensitive vouchers that were to be used by August. If the vouchers weren’t used by the deadline, they would be deemed worthless.

However most lockdowns had only just begun in April, and the future was quite uncertain. There was no way to predict when lockdown would end, and vulnerable populations like the elderly may not feel comfortable booking a holiday for some time. It’s not unusual for holiday letting companies to issue vouchers, but the time-sensitivity specification during the pandemic was a dilemma for many.

Affected customers revealed the holiday refund policy to the Competition and Markets Authority, which took action to amend the policy.

“The CMA’s COVID-19 Taskforce has so far received around 4,500 reports about U.K. holiday rental companies, with complaints about Vacation Rentals making up a significant proportion of those reports,” the CMA stated.

The CMA vowed to take legal action for firms that did not issue refunds to customers with cancelled holidays or weddings during the pandemic.

The majority of complaints received by the COVID-19 Taskforce during the pandemic have been due to cancellations or refund policies, and the competition watchdog has tackled the complaints quickly. The CMA says most businesses are “acting reasonably in what are unprecedented circumstances” but agrees that consumers have rights that shouldn’t be ignored, according to The Guardian.

“The current situation is throwing up challenges for everyone, including businesses, but that does not mean that consumer rights can fall by the wayside,” CMA chief executive Andrew Coscelli told The Guardian. “If we find evidence that businesses are failing to comply with consumer protection law then we will get tough – that means launching enforcement cases and moving to court action where there is a strong reason to do so.”

Vacation Rentals, which owns many other holiday rental websites, including Welcome Cottages and Landal GreenParks, has made a full commitment to the CMA to offer complete refunds. The holiday rental company also provided monthly reports on the number of refunds made.

To help consumers understand their rights, the CMA has issued guidance to support anyone affected by certain refund policies or cancellations during the coronavirus pandemic.

According to the CMA, in most cases, a consumer can expect a refund if a business can cancelled a contract without providing goods or services, services are prevented due to government-implemented health standards or the consumer cancels or is prevented from receiving services.

From the view of the CMA, the consumer is entitled to a refund if they cannot receive goods or services they paid for due to government-issued health measures, which would include paying for a holiday rental before a travel ban.

The aforementioned refund policy rules also apply if the consumer has put down a nonrefundable deposit or advance payment, which in many cases is required for holiday rentals.

Lastly, credits, vouchers and rebookings can be offered to consumers as an alternative to a refund, but the terms must be clear and fair. The option of a refund should also be clearly available.

Vacation Rentals maintains it was offering refunds before the CMA’s guidance was put in place, a spokesman told the BBC: “Following the CMA’s statement on 30 April clarifying its view on the law on cancellations of consumer contracts during the COVID-19 pandemic, we acted immediately and expanded the options available to any customers who were due to travel during the government imposed lockdown period to include a full cash refund. By the time the CMA’s investigation into our business commenced, we were already acting in line with the CMA’s guidance.”

Was your holiday booking affected during the pandemic? Did you face any limitations when requesting a refund? Let us know in the comments.