How to get compensation or a refund from Vueling Airlines
Have you had a Vueling flight canceled? Struggling to get compensation? Find out your legal rights and actions you can take.
In July 2022, two friends and I were booked on a Vueling flight to Barcelona for a girls trip to celebrate my birthday. However, around two weeks before we were due to fly, our flight was canceled. Despite being legally entitled to a refund for the flight, we were unable to get one.
And it appears, we are far from alone. As The Guardian’s Consumer Champions shared here and here, other passengers have also struggled to receive refunds and compensation from the airline.
After much research and resourcefulness, including initiating a small claims court case against lastminute.com and Vueling’s UK parent company, I was able to secure both compensation and a refund for our cancelled flight. Here’s how I did it.
Never book flights via lastminute.com
One of the reasons we initially struggled to get a refund for our flights was due to ignorance on our part. When planning our break, my friend initially used last minute.com to find the flight and hotel. However, when it came to booking she was able to secure a more favourable deal through the hotel directly, so only used lastminute.com for the flights.
This was a big mistake.
Why? Because, if we’d booked the hotel and flight through lastminute.com we’d have had ABTA and/or ATOL protection. However, because we’d booked the flights separately, this did not apply.
When we tried to contact lastminute.com for help, we discovered this was pretty much impossible. All emails were from a ‘no reply’ email address, their phone line at that time apparently had a three-hour wait (assuming you’d even be able to speak to a human when you did get through), and their customer service chat simply said there was nothing they could do.
Because we’d booked the flights via lastminute.com we did not have a Vueling booking number, which meant that we were unable to get help via their website. It was impossible to find a customer service email address (even their own stewardesses had no idea how to get in touch with the airline when we asked on the flight), and their phone line had no option to speak to a human. Vueling are also not on Resolver, which meant we were unable to use their service.
So if you are planning to go away, we don’t recommend booking a trip with lastminute.com. Because, if you book flights only you seem to have fewer protections/recourse, and even if you do book a package with them, their customer service is appalling, in our experience.
lastminute.com don’t seem to understand the law
There’s another big reason not to trust your booking with lastminute.com: they don’t seen to understand the law.
Here’s what happened to us. As mentioned, around two weeks before we were due to fly to Spain, we received an email from lastminute.com informing us that our Vueling Airlines return flight was changing from midday to early in the morning. The email gave us three options:
- To accept the flight
- To ask lastminute.com to change to another flight
- To cancel the flight and request a refund
We didn’t want to get up in the middle of the night to make an early morning flight home, and couldn’t find any suitable alternative flights on lastminute.com, so booked a separate return flight directly with Vueling Airlines and asked lastminute.com for a refund.
A week before we flew, lastminute.com emailed again to say Vueling were unable to refund the flight “in accordance with their terms and conditions”.
However, this was not legally correct.
lastminute.com and Vueling were both trying to claim this alteration to our booked flight was a “schedule change”. If this was true, then they would have been correct, and we would not have been entitled to a refund.
However, they were both wrong, and it was instead a flight cancellation. And according to Vueling’s terms and conditions AND the law, this meant they must refund us.
Here’s why.
The difference between a schedule change and a cancelled flight
As I discovered when researching our legal rights, there is a difference between changing the time of a flight, and cancelling a flight and booking you on another one. Passengers are not entitled to a refund for a schedule change, but they ARE entitled to one if their flight has been cancelled.
And the difference between the two lies in flight numbers. If an airline changes the time of your flight, and the new flight time has the same flight number, this is considered a ‘schedule change’. But if, as happened in our case, the new flight has a different flight number, it is considered a cancellation.
Here’s what the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) says about this:
According to the CAA, we were entitled to a refund for our cancelled flight, and lastminute.com were incorrect in referring us to Vueling’s terms and conditions:
However, as we discovered, you may be legally entitled to a refund from airlines, but actually getting it is not always easy.
We sent legal letters to lastminute.com
After failing to secure a credit card refund, and having got nowhere in trying to contact either lastminute.com or Vueling, I called Citizen’s Advice for help. They recommended sending a series of three letters to lastminute.com requesting a refund. Citizen’s Advice have useful letter templates here.)
Each letter was sent ‘signed for’, so we had proof of receipt, gave them 14 days to respond, and stated our willingness to use Alternative Dispute Resolution services. The final letter informed them we would take further legal action if we could not resolve the matter.
At this point, lastminute.com finally emailed the friend who had made the booking. But they were sticking to their (legally incorrect) position:
“Please note that we have verified with the airline and based on their respond [sic] there was no refund to be offered due to the schedule change.”
It is incredible that a large, experienced travel company such as lastminute.com do not seem to understand a basic law. Even if Vueling were incorrectly trying to claim a schedule change, lastminute.com should know the law.
We took lastminute.com to court
Left with no other option, we started a claim in the small claims court against lastminute.com (LMNEXT UK Ltd), and indicated we would agree to mediation. However, lastminute.com responded that they would defend the case and were not willing to enter into mediation.
At the court’s request we also added the airline to the case. As we were unable to find a UK address for Vueling we added the International Airlines Group as they are the parent company of Vueling. (We found their address on Companies House.)
If you’re in a similar position, you too can make a claim through the small claims court online. It cost £50 to make the claim and I found it relatively simple to complete the form. There is a charity, Support Through Court that will help you navigate the process if you do not have a lawyer. They have a free helpline, but be warned – you will wait quite a long time to speak to someone!
We raised a dispute through the AESA
I was confident we had a good case, but I wanted to increase our chances of receiving the refund we were legally due. So I also raised a complaint through the AESA. The AESA is the state body which ensures that civil aviation standards are complied with throughout Spain’s aeronautical activity.
Before you can raise a complaint with the AESA you must first file a complaint with the airline responsible for the incident. We sent our complaint to Vueling’s offices in Spain, and kept proof of postage (you will be asked for the by the AESA).
The airline has one month to respond to you, after which you can file your complaint with the AESA. Having received no response from Vueling we registered our complaint. At the time, the form we completed was in Spanish, but today the form is also in English, which makes the process much simpler!
It is free to make a complaint through the AESA but it is not a fast process (they do say on their website that they are extremely busy).
The AESA found in our favour
Nearly two years after initially raising a complaint with the AESA, we finally heard back – they had found in our favour. Not only that, they ruled that the airline must not only refund our flights, but also pay us compensation.
It took Vueling a few weeks to respond, but eventually they emailed to ask for bank details and finally paid the refund and compensation. I was delighted to have succeeded, but frustrated that it took so long and so much resourcefulness.
How to get compensation or a refund from Vueling Airlines
If you’re in a similar position with Vueling, I hope this gives you hope and is helpful. Here’s a quick rundown of everything we did to try to get a refund for a cancelled Vueling Airlines flight:
- We requested a refund from lastminute.com
- We tried to contact both lastminute.com and Vueling
- We tried to request a refund from the credit card company
- We sent legal letters to lastminute.com
- We wrote to Vueling
- We took lastminute.com and Vueling to court
- We raised a complaint with the AESA
As we received a refund and compensation directly from Vueling, we never did get to test the case against lastminute.com and Vueling’s parent company in court. But I like to think that we would have been successful, given that we were legally correct, and the AESA found in our favour.
Should you avoid lastminute.com and Vueling?
My final piece of advice, based on our experience, would be to never, ever book a holiday with lastminute.com. I believe their customer care to be non-existent (they seem to make it as difficult as possible to get help) and, worryingly, they do not appear to understand the law.
Even once lastminute.com’s legal team were involved in defending the court case, they were still trying to claim – incorrectly – that the flight cancellation was a schedule change. Personally I would never trust my money or holiday booking with them.
And as for Vueling, here’s what Miles Brignall, The Guardian’s consumer champion says about Vueling:
“I’d urge Guardian readers to avoid this airline, unless they enjoy fighting legal battles. Big firms that operate transparently, and within the law, are usually happy to talk to the press and allow claims to be heard in court, so why isn’t Vueling?”
