To think that “because of covid” is now taking the piss?

[Ndujauser]

24 hours before we are leaving for a stay in a holiday cottage, and this message has just popped up - “ because of the current situation with covid we are no longer providing bedding. Please bring your own pillows, duvets, linen and towels”.
This feels like a massive cop out now, and I’m really hacked off at having to sort it out at the last minute. I get that there are still plenty of covid cases around, but surely we’re done with this kind of measure?

This sort of thing is just total bollocks. Taking the piss big time.

YANBU. We went away recently, check in was 5pm and check out 9.30am ‘because of Covid’. We also visited some lavender fields only to be told you couldn’t go to the lavender fields themselves any more because of covid. Funny how covid wasn’t stopping them from running their gift shop!

that sounds lazy of them

Phew! Glad it's sorted

With the exception of towels that is crazy, not everyone would even have the means to take all that with them. We would have to cancel if that was us as wouldn’t have space for kids plus luggage plus pushchair plus bedding etc.

I think "2020s-general-cluster-fuckdom" would be a better term than "COVID" or "BREXIT" alone.

The pandemic has been and gone, but has had some long-lasting effects on labor markets: a big withdrawal in the over-50s from the labor market, in particular (though the exact reasons for this are unclear), and the rise of WFH also means that jobs that cannot offer WFH are struggling to attract people. BREXIT has not helped as many Europeans went home. The Ukraine war has pushed up the COL and prices, so workers want more pay, but businesses may feel limited in what they can offer as they struggle to recover from the pandemic. On top of which, the aging population is continuing to exert its toll.

It's not just one thing, and it's not unique to the UK, although the UK does seem particularly bad as BREXIT has aggravated many issues and we did badly in COVID due to our overweight and unhealthy population which has a lot of MH issues, all of which meant that COVID hit us very badly.

I notice quite a few businesses have just kept the changes they made in covid times, I suspect because they need less staff.
See also restaurants and coffee shops where you have to order on the app, places and events where you must buy tickets in advance and not on the door "so they can monitor numbers due to covid"

'Don't usually provide'. Fucking spell it out in the listing then!

You're right it's a massive piss-take OP, particularly as they have chosen to spring this information on you at the last minute so you have no option but to do as they say. If they'd let you know at the time of booking, which they should've done, you would, no doubt, have found alternative accommodation!

As others have said, many hotels and providers of overnight accommodation realised during the pandemic that they could save themselves a huge amount of money by not providing many of the services that guests expect as standard. That some hotels and many holiday lets are STILL getting away with not providing standard overnight accommodation services is appalling IMO and I would be writing a really scathing review of any provider that does this.

Customer Support later, and cottage owner has phoned me to say that “they don’t usually” provide linen etc

Did you mention Covid and ask why they were using it as an excuse?

Yes, it’s bonkers.

Even more bonkers is still not being able to get certain face to face gp appointments ‘because of covid measures’ 👀

I just went away and stayed in a lodge bedding included, ridiculous excuse three years on.

Even if they were it wouldn't be a problem - good hot wash for the bedding and towels. Pillows and duvets should have protectors on them so they're not able to be contaminated by anything.

I'd check the original booking and be looking to cancel. It isn't as simple as stripping beds into a suitcase. We travel by train. That's a double and 3 singles plus spares. Utterly ridiculous

We've just come back from a week in Cornwall, in a nice little SC lodge. Everything was provided, including throws and blankets in case it was chilly when guests sat in the garden! The listing actually said that we needed to provide our own teatowels, which is fine, so we turned up with teatowels only to find two perfectly nice new ones already there. I asked the owner if she wanted us to strip the beds when we left, and she said no, just put the rubbish out.

We go away to self-catering cottages quite regularly and very rarely find these batshit rules. Most owners are great. We book with either Sykes or Cottages.com.

Let's face it though, it's got nothing to do with covid. It's just cost-saving

They’re taking the piss. You’re not going to catch covid from washed sheets.
They might as well say you need to bring your own glasses as well to drink from.

It’s a host taking advantage of saving money previously and thinks they can carry on. There are no restrictions just now, not even in hospitals, so why is a holiday cottage saying there are.

Mayve they are struggling to find and pay for staff, it’s not the users problem though, I’m sure hotels are having the same problems.

Of course it's ridiculous. Unfortunately during covid companies have learnt that they don't need to provide any customer service.

They've learnt it's easy to blame lame covid, Brexit, Ukraine or China.

This is from my car insurers, when I asked them why my renewal quote is double(!) last year's:

Rupesh: We know it’s frustrating to see premiums go up, especially if none of your details have changed. Unfortunately, like most other things, the cost of handling an insurance claim and repairing a vehicle has gone up a lot recently. As you’d expect, the price of insuring cars has needed to go up in line with this.
(14:38:13) Rupesh: Whether it’s parts shortages caused by the war in Ukraine, a smaller pool of mechanics post-Brexit, or global shortages of essential microchips - a wide range of factors are pushing up the cost of putting things right when a claim comes up.

Glad you got sorted in the end OP.

Agree with others that hotels in the UK are ridiculous now with the carry over from 2020 practices - check-in at 4pm, checkout at 10am , no housekeeping unless requested, all that jazz. It is piss poor. On the continent things are very much back to normal with hotels ... as they should be. And no self checkout in shops or downloading the menu and placing your order yourself or any of the extra work that customers are expected to do in the UK as a matter of course.

We had confusion with two self catering properties last year (not Air). The first one said checkout at 10 on the conformation but in tje cottage we found two lots of "instructions" (the cottage info folder and on the notice board) one said 9 and the other said 10. We aimed for somewhere in between and no one turned up at 9. The other one everything clearly said 10 and cleaners arrived at 9! They were fine when when I said the email said 10am but it still made me feel awkward.

When I first started using self caterings it was not u usual to find places that asked you to take bedding or towels, or to make an extra charge for it. But bedding just meant sheets, duvet covers and pillowcases not the actual pillows.

I think a lot of companies, especially in hospitality, have seized the opportunity to cut services and raise prices!

I'm also surprised by the number of people on social media who are still milking the "because of covid", and blaming any little mishap in their lives on it.

Tell them you have already left for the cottage and we're visiting family beforehand. Subsequently you have no bedding with you

In other words, they do possess bed linen and are perfectly bloody capable of changing and washing it - but they've learned from experience that if they take the piss in this manner, the majority of people will just quietly suck it up and drag sheets about with them on holiday.

Idle bunch of chancers.

COVID has been the gift that keeps of giving for some time for people that don't like doing work.

But this is incredible, can you complain to AirBnB or whoever is the end service provider?