Between June 1 and August 18, Portuguese people registered 1,444 complaints related to holidays on the Complaints Portal, within the category: Hotels, Travel and Tourism. The data points to a 12% increase in the number of complaints, compared to the same period of the previous year, which registered 1,290 occurrences.

The main reasons for complaints presented by consumers are problems associated with undue charges, totalling 28.7% of the complaints received, with emphasis on debits of amounts not authorized or not recognized by consumers.

The next most common issue is the difficulty with reimbursement, which accounted for 18.3% of incidents and led to 7.2% of complaints during these holidays, and was the quality of the service or accommodation, referring to cases of services that differed from those described at the time of contracting the service.

Representing 7% of complaints in the “Hotels, Travel and Tourism” category, the topic “cancellation or change of reservation” was identified. Meanwhile, 5.9% of the problems shared referred to customer support, with consumers reporting difficulty in obtaining assistance from the entity to resolve problems or queries.

Also subject to analysis, the “Car Rental” category received 212 complaints in the period analyzed (June 1 to August 18), an increase of 17.8% in complaints compared to 2023, when 180 were observed.

Regarding alleged schemes via online purchases in the Tourism sector, according to the data, between June and August, the topic of fraud was reported in 387 complaints. Among the reasons given by the Portuguese were: refund not received (63.6%); unauthorized or unknown transaction (19.7%); phishing (8.5%); false advertising (4.2%) and subscription to services (2.7%).