A nightmare that went on for half a year with no results
I have booked a return flight ticket with a third party platform Lastminute.com in August 2025 through recommendation from Skyscanner. It was a flight from Amsterdam (via Frankfurt) to Chengdu, China, operated by Lufthansa and Air China. What I have experienced is untruthful treatment from Lastminute.com who refused to issue a full refund (blaming everything was on the airline) while it was within my right.
My flight was supposed to take off in October, but in September I received an email notification from Lastminute.com that my flight was cancelled. After contacting the airline directly, I understood that the inbound flight from Chengdu had a time change, which leaves too little time for a transfer in Frankfurt. As the airline explained that I was eligible for a full refund, they advised me to contact Lastminute.com to initiate this process since the ticket was booked by them.
I have contacted Lastminute.com directly afterwards, and their customer support also confirmed that I was indeed eligible for a refund. I have contacted them many many times in between, but was only able to receive an update in NOVEMBER (a month after the journey already took place) that the refund was not possible. Lastminute.com has declined to issue a refund with no clear clause, blaming everything on the airline.
After chasing their support team many many times again, refused to get off their live chat, they finally assigned a contact person from their claim team to handle my case. After months of back and forth, they still claim that the airline has refused to issue the refund, and they are working on it, without being able to provide any proof of communication.
My take on this case so far:
- Lastminute.com had a special deal with the airline, which is meant for specific routes. When the schedule changed, they could no longer coordinate the changes. So they just declared my flight cancelled, when it was actually not the case. They just won't do the due diligence of rescheduling customers. Well...why would them do more work for money they already earned (and refused to pay back)?
- Lastminute.com has intentionally waited until my flight has already passed to start handling my case. They have been delaying the process despite my effort of chasing them long before the ticket dates. My flight was announced "cancelled" before the trip, and the decision of "refund not possible based on airline policy" only came after the flight time already passed.
- There is a HUGE discrepancy with their automated email notification, while I was clearly eligible for a full refund when filing a complaint directly with Lastminute. This is very clear that they just do this for every single customer and wish no body will come to claim. Typical scam move to deny customers' right to get their money back.
- The whole procedure was done without any proof of communication. I can never verify if the response of airline is true or not. It feels like a standard scam Lastminute.com uses to treat their customers. If the flights take off as planned, they are all good. But if there is any changes, they declare the flights cancelled and refuse the refund and blame everything on the airline.
- I have contacted AirChina many times and they have been very helpful. They offered to change the dates within one year, unfortunately I could not make it to those dates and the fixed route from previous booking. What they have informed me is always in conflict with what Lastminute.com told me. Sadly Air China couldn't help me more since the only way to deal with it is through Lastminute.com. I have also checked it on many forums that many customers have the same experience.
Date of experience: 19 September, 2025
Verified
