Be careful who you book your holiday with

The pandemic caused thousands of flights to be cancelled and others to go ahead empty of passengers because the UK government banned holidays.

Now is the time to remember which airlines and holiday firms were honourable when we could not travel during the travel restrictions.

Only last week we were reminded by the Competition and Markets Authority who were not. The Competition and Markets Authority had been looking at the refusals to refund customers by Ryanair and British Airways and had reluctantly decided it could not force the airlines to refund passengers, who had missed out on their holidays last year.

Instead of giving refunds both airlines offered vouchers or rebooking. Other airlines and travel companies paid up. Some were prompted to do so by the CMA, who won commitments to pay hundreds of millions or people who did not get the holidays that they paid for.

But last week the CMA said the law was not clear on whether there should be refunds for people if their flight went ahead but they were legally prohibited from taking it.

Many people who lost money went to their credit card companies to get a refund under the Consumer Credit Act. This brilliant piece of legislation help anyone who spends more than £100 on their credit card and does not get what they pay for. It has cost banks and card companies billions of pounds in the last year or so.

But now there is evidence from MoneySavingExpert that Ryanair is charging holidaymakers this year up to £600 if they sought refunds from their credit card companies.

Ryanair is sticking to its guns saying if its flights operated as scheduled they are non-refundable. Its terms and conditions state that it might refuse to carry passengers if they owe money in respect of a previous flight because a payment has been “recharged” against it. This is what credit cards do when they refund us for what we have not received.

While Ryanair may have a long memory we also need to remember which companies looked after us and reward them with our business moving forward.