LastMinuteTravel

I read so many negative reviews for this website that I wanted to share my experience for people who might be hesitant to use this site. I have a hotel booked that is usually $140/night and, using the app, I got it for $100/night. I have called the hotel several times to confirm that it was actually booked and every time they tell me it is. Whenever I call the customer service for lmt.com, I haven't had a long wait time and I get a real person. So I won't be checking into the hotel for another 2 weeks but it seems like it is going to work out and if I had believed all the bad reviews, I would have missed out on saving $200.
***update 11/6/15*** I just wanted to update everyone to let them know that when I arrived at the hotel, everything went smoothly. They had the reservation with the correct dates and the correct amount of days and they even gave me a room with a view of the water.

Hello,
My wife and i were at the lax Airport checkin-in to make a nice and good weekend in Panama City, Panama. Once checked in, and after passing through airport security, we used the LastMinuteTravel.com website to book a hotel in Panama as we saw plenty of hotels were available on the day before.
Therefore, we booked the Hard Rock Hotel Panama Megazlopolis from 06/01 to 06/04 and we were charged $360.84 for the three days then, received immediately a Hotel Reservation Confirmation.
However, just before boarding the aircraft, LastMinuteTravel.com sent us another email saying that they cancelled our reservation...!
"Thank you for choosing Last Minute Travel. This email is to inform you that your reservation has been cancelled as the information you provided does not match the credit card used. Your credit card was refunded. Please contact your bank to verify your information before submitting a new reservation... Please be advised, all transactions are subject to verification of all information provided and may be cancelled due to verification failure..."
I provided them exactly with the real and accurate credit card and billing information so i was really upset as the money we used was dedicated to be used on that trip for hotel booking and was deposited on a prepaid visa card, so they were holding that money until the refund was appearing back in the account...!
My wife and i were completely bored because we were then boarding and had no hotel booking plus less money to travel because the money which was on the prepaid account was blocked by the credit card company to guarantee their payement to LastMinuteTravel.com...! Also, we had to use another credit card and booked another hotel with Expedia which was going through very well as usual...
Following that incident, we arrived in Panama with less money than expected for the weekend so we did not travel a lot during the weekend because a part of our money was blocked for nothing as LastMinuteTravel didn't do a good job.! We also called them from Panama spending lots of money for nothing as their customer service didn't take care of what we were saying and told us, you have been refunded with no apologize or help to compensate what was happening... Plus, the person on the phone was rude and didn't explained us what happened saying that "if we cancelled, it's possible that we did not receive approval for the payment or information was not accurate" while i was charged and the money was blocked by the bank immediately after the reservation...
I also called the bank and they guaranteed that they gave approval for the transaction with a valid approval code which confirmed my reservation with the online travel agency...
I was reviewing plenty of other complaints with LastMinuteTravel.Com as saw that plenty of people complaint with this travel agency, lost of them saying hotel bookings were cancelled, refunds took long time, customer service was not attentive and taking care of customer complaints... That's exactly what was happening also to us...
The charges were appearing on the account as debited on 06/02 only one day after the reservation made throughout their website while the refund appeared into the account only on 06/05 three days later contrary to what they said when sending the cancellation notice via email on the same day of making the reservation...! Unfortunately for us, we already came back to LA when we received the refund to the prepaid card, and we spent 3 days there in Panama with less money during our stay as we had to pay twice for the hotel, so we didn't do lots of things due to lack of money... Also, the refund received was not equivalent to the original charges and we received $5 less than what was charged before!
I emailed LastMinuteTravel.Com one time last week, attaching copies of the bank account statement, the detailed credit card charged made with approvals, and a copy of the billing information plus copies of the card used for booking, re explaining what was happening and telling that i will dispute this issue if they weren't do anything to compensate, and they answer that this issue was due to insufficient funds or the credit card was denied, while money was approved and put on hold on the credit card..., and they added that they will not do anything to compensate as there were not in fault...!
I replied another time and re explaining the situation and the answered that the information was certainly not accurate so they had to cancel the reservation and refund the booking... while i already sent them proof that there was no particular issue with both the card, the billing info and the money available in the account which was blocked until charge definitively by the travel agent...
I will never use again their services also.
Hope the review will help lots of people!

On Feb. 13 I made and got confirmation for a US Air flight out of Prov. RI on the 15th at 8am to Ft. Laud. FLA. We get hit with yet another storm and the flight is cancelled. US Air tells us they earliest they can get us out of PVD is Wed. The 18th and they will email the confirmation #. No emails. On Monday, 2 of us were calling US Air every half hour and getting a recording that said due to heavy volume call back later. Finally I get it in my head to call LastMinuteTravel. Guess what, a human answered my call (and prayers). Sebastian listened to the crazy $#*! ranting of a stressed out nut job (me) and sorted thru the whole situation. He patiently explained the big picture to me and let me know what to do and what to expect. These big companies( US Air) have got to realize what a calming effect a real human voice has on a stressed out customer and I hope LastMinuteTravel realized what a prize they have in a customer service rep like Sebastian!

Beware of "standard" v "accessible" rooms. Even if you pay for the standard you may end up with an accessible room with no compensation from this booking site. The hotel was apologetic and upgraded us for the next day, but the booking site offered nothing other than a phone call, which I had already done. Operator was very nice, but I advise booking through the hotel; using this site only means you get to pay in advance and don't know what you will get.

Like others my reservation was cancelled one day before arrival without reason. On other websites the hotel was sold out so I think they overbooked it and I reserved something that was not available. Furthermore the reimbursement was not complete, maybe due to some fee. I gave a try but it is better to stick to some more reliable travel website.

Got to our hotel, no reservations... ruined weekend

I feel that they are not clear in their terms and conditions. When I bought a flight ticket I get this message:

CHANGES / CANCELLATIONS: CHANGES / CANCELLATIONS: Any changes / cancellations to your reservation are subject to a processing fee of $ 30.00 per ticket in Addition to any airline imposed penalties and / or collection of additional airfare. All tickets are non-transferable.

With that message I understood that I am available to do flight cancellations... but when you want to cancel they say "NO CANCELLATION permitted" now they do not want return my money even explaining that I have a certificate of medical urgency,
For me, very bad way to do business!

Put in a request for a hotel that could not confirm a reservation straight away and received an email from lastminutetravel.com notifying me that I would either receive a confirmation email or details of alternative arrangements within 48 hours. This did not occur so I made alternative arrangements. 4 days after the initial accommodation request was submitted I received confirmation of accommodation - LESS THAN 24 hours before I was due to arrived which meant that any cancellation had to be paid in full. Even though I had booked a UK hotel through a UK website (lastminutetravel.co.uk) I was put on hold for 20 minutes to a US number as that is what was listed as "customer service" on the confirmation email. I indicated that as the company had not adhered to the contractual agreement initially entered into that I was due to a full refund... of course that was impossible unless the hotel could confirm that. Contacted the hotel - have to wait until lastminute.com can confirm the refund. EXTREMELY UNIMPRESSED. Have dealt with many booking sites before and have never had such issues. I asked if there would be any compensation made if I was not given the refund such as vouchers etc. Told flatly no. Apparently this company doesn't need customers as they are doing nothing to endear themselves to returning business or the possibility that avid travellers like myself might warn others of their experience. Stick with booking.com; hotwire.com or the best of the bunch (in my experience, though not always the cheapest) expedia.

I purchased an airfare and rental car package. When I checked in at Hertz I was told there would be a $102.00 fee at the return. I feel that this should have been included in the package. This was not a special fee and in reality probably changed my purchasing decision. The $50.00 bagage fees and $102.00 rental charge turned the $650.00 price into $800.00. The good deal goes away quickly with these add-on's. My choice for the additional bag ($25 each way) however, $15 /day add-on for the car should be worked into the quoted price by the companies. Not check the fine print and give me the money later.

Beware.

They have you book rooms that are not confirmed yet not able to be cancelled, and don't tell you for days that you may not have a room. Some people have had the terrible experience of showing up at the hotel only to find that no reservations exist. In my case, I emailed the company 2 days before my trip and found out to my surprise that despite no message from lastminute, my reservation was with an overbooked hotel.

This is a classic bait and switch strategy -- the website list deals that either never existed, or have been sold out for weeks. Then when you don't get the non-existant cheap reservations, they try to sell you more expensive reservations that they can "guarantee".

If you search on the web, you will also see that many people report hidden fees and unannounced credit card charges. The company tends to put all their important info (i. E. their contract information, their FAQs, their extra fees and caveats) hidden in small print pop-ups. If you do not read the small print on every popup, you have no idea what you will be charged for. In my case, a pop up is what was supposed to inform me that despite my credit card information, and despite my agreement to not cancel my room even though I did not get an exact hotel name, that lastminute could let me know at any time that I did not in fact get a reservation.

Pretty unfair, right?

I made the reservation with, and when I went to the hotel. The hotel didn't have my reservation. I contact the customer service of lastminutetravel, she was held me on the line about half an hour, and came back with the bad news that she contacted the hotel but unfortunately the hotel was sold out all rooms. I told the reception at the hotel about what happened. She helped me found out. She called the customer service on the website, and told them that she didn't get any phone call at that time, and the hotel still had rooms available. The website told her that they wanted to cancel my reservation without any reason. The reception at the hotel help me to make sure that they won't charge me the money. I WONT choose this website AGAIN!

How do you know an online company is really awesome? It is only when you have an issue that you have the opportunity to see what they are really made of. This was the case with my experience today with www.lastminutetravel.com. I had booked a ticket to Florida and then found that I needed to change my departure time after the fact. According to their policy they had the right to charge me a $30 change fee, and then whatever the difference was in the new ticket price, and then whatever fees the airline itself would charge for the change. I gave them a call shortly after booking the ticket and a pleasant woman took my call. She told me that because my ticket hadn't yet been officially booked, that my credit card wasn't charged yet, and thus she can completely cancel my order so that no fees would apply. I would simply have to place a new order. She said she would provide a follow-up email indicating my previous order was cancelled. I'm very pleased with my experience in dealing with this company and definitely plan on giving them my business in the future.

On a side note I found their pricing to be very competitive when compared to other travel websites, and their site was a lot easier to navigate and offered more flexibility than most.