Anyone booked with cottages.com?

[Pannsies]

My parents booked a house for a family weekend break which was obviously cancelled. Have been offered a voucher to rebook but for many reasons this won't work for us and we really want the money back. Many phone calls, emails and Twitters DMs and they've completely stopped replying.

Has anyone booked with them and had any luck getting their money back?

We have booked two holidays with them this year, one for September, which I’m hoping may still go ahead, and one which we should be going on on Monday.
TBH I had written the May holiday off as lost money as we weren’t insured ( if we can’t go for some reason, we would give the holiday to friends or family anyway).
They emailed us to say we could switch for another date, so we transferred it to the same week next year and got a refund too of £40 as it’s cheaper next year for some reason.
I was more than pleased with this solution. Yes, I’m taking a risk that they don’t go bump in the meantime, but as I said, we weren’t insured so had written the cost off.

I think they have been giving out refunds, but are encouraging transfer or credit note in order to survive.

When was the holiday booked for? They are prioritising by date, so it may be in the system somewhere. There is a Facebook group for people chasing refunds and I saw a post on there quite recently by them saying that they were working through the backlog. I believe that people are getting refunds, but are having to fight really hard for them.

When's the start date, OP? At the moment they're prioritising contacting people due to start holidays this week - they closed completely to incoming calls over the bank holiday weekend to try and catch up with the backlog.

I'm an owner with them and the last update they sent out to owners yesterday said they are actively contacting all bookings up to 1st June, not allowing new bookings starting before 4th July, and customers with bookings starting between 1st June and 3rd July have an immediate option to transfer their holiday or obtain a refund, but for the moment their administrative focus is on May bookings. The price match promise has now been extended all arrival dates up to and including 3rd July.

Thank you both for the replies. We were meant to travel on 8th May, so fingers crossed we're in the backlog somewhere.

Do you happen to have a link to the Facebook group?

VeryLittleOwl - I do hope you're not too badly affected by the cancellations.

covid-19 affected Hoseasons (& Cottages.com)

Is the Facebook group I was on

Hopefully you will be, Pannsies, I think they're just utterly swamped trying to sort out cancelling every single booking over about 21,000 properties.

Between the last guests leaving on 21st March and the first potential reopening date of 4th July (no chance in Scotland and I'll be surprised if it happens in England) I've had to cancel 82 nights, lost income of just over £6,000. Fortunately most of those had only paid deposits and the majority have chosen to rebook later this year or next year (we're lucky and get a lot of repeat guests) so my owner account is only standing at -£394 and the agency isn't asking owners to pay negative balances, which is really good of them. I've heard of a few agencies who have asked owners to reimburse guests for the full booking amount and the agencies have still kept the commission, which is ludicrous.

Mine is in August, I would be happy to transfer the booking if needs be.

Are they taking the balances still?

Pannsies - this is their latest update on Facebook. You should be able to ring in and get a refund straight away by the looks of it. I got through in about 10 minutes this morning when I got a voicemail from them about a non-standard booking.

COVID-19 update – 16th May 2020

For customers travelling between 23rd March and up to and including 31st May 2020:
Your options are to transfer your holiday or to request a cash refund.

You should have received an email with your e-voucher. This can be used on a 2020 holiday or a 2021 stay, and means you can move your holiday without needing to call us. Plus if you choose to move to 2021 you can benefit from our Price Match Promise – terms apply. If you have not received your e-voucher you can re-request it via My Booking on our website.
If you would prefer to have a cash refund please contact us on 0345 268 8730 or you can request a call-back here - www.cottages.com/my-booking

For customers travelling between 1st June and up to and including 3rd July 2020:
Unfortunately, your holiday will not be able to go ahead. Your options are to transfer your holiday or to request a cash refund.

If you would like to transfer your holiday to a new date then you can request an e-voucher today here - www.cottages.com/request-transfer. This can be used on a 2020 holiday or a 2021 stay, and means you can move your holiday without needing to call us. Plus if you choose to move to 2021 you can benefit from our Price Match Promise – terms apply.
If you would prefer to have a cash refund then we would ask you to be patient as we are currently prioritising refunds for customers with earlier arrival dates. We will advise you how to request a refund closer to the time of your arrival date.

Thank you very much for all the help. Managed to get a full refund which is a big relief