Emily Liddle and George Ridley have lived and worked in Edinburgh for years. Last year they decided to re-locate to London, but before that they wanted to have a once-in-a-lifetime holiday. In September 2019 they booked their flights, aiming to travel first to London, then fly from Heathrow to Japan on March 19, followed by a complicated itinerary of travel through Asia before flying home from Singapore in June.

Emily said: “We booked with Lufthansa, thinking they were a reputable airline so we’d have no problems. Then on March 12, about a week before we were due to fly, they cancelled our flights. They actually didn’t tell us they cancelled (no call, email or text, nothing). It was only because I was worried about the Covid-19 situation that I checked our account to find it had been cancelled.

“For the next two days we spent ages trying to call the company, waiting for hours at a time to speak to an agent. At that point, Covid-19 wasn’t yet a pandemic and there weren’t the global travel restrictions that were later applied. We got through eventually, to find they had decided to cancel our flight for ‘economic reasons.’ The flight the next day was still operating, so we had the option of booking onto that - but this would’ve meant our whole itinerary was ruined, plus we’d have to re-arrange all our travel and accommodation to London, as we were staying the night beforehand to catch our flight from Heathrow.

“The agent recommend that we could get a full refund on the flight and that would allow us to re-book with their sister airline KLM. We decided this was the best thing to do, as the KLM flight was on the same day (March 19) and at the same price. So, we re-booked with KLM and accepted the flight refund from Lufthansa; they told us we’d have the money back in seven days.
Then on the Monday (March 16) the UK travel advice changed, banning travel out of UK, which meant we were unable to get on our KLM flight.

“Subsequently, KLM cancelled our flight, so even if we had been crazy and decided to travel against the government advice, we wouldn’t be able to. Lufthansa supposedly ‘refunded’ our first flight that day (March 16) but we still haven’t seen a penny. In fact, they notified us on that they have changed their policy to give us flight vouchers only, rather than cash. We are trying to dispute this. We have been through the same process with KLM, where they are refusing to refund our flights at all, even though it was they and not us who cancelled our flight. They keep re-iterating that it’s “not their current policy” to refund in cash, so they too are offering to provide flight vouchers only. This has been over a series of calls and emails that has been very stressful and frustrating. I hate to add that I have also had some extremely poor customer service. I had read out my consumer rights under EU Law to be told there is nothing that can be done.

“Those two flights cost just shy of £2,000. On top of this, we had booked internal flights in Asia which have all been cancelled and we are unable to get refunds for those, so we about £2,200 out of pocket for services we have never received. Added to this the cost of phone calls to the various companies and the amount of time and stress it has taken up.

“I feel really angry and frustrated. I know the pandemic itself is nobody’s fault and many people are suffering in lots of different ways. This isn’t about us losing our holiday – that can’t be helped. It’s about the appalling way we are being treated. The bottom line is that we’ve paid for services that we have not received, so surely we are en​titled to our money back.”