Holiday Cottage Booking Resold without my ok

[CoastalCalm]

Apologies if long will try to keep brief

In the last two weeks I have found out I have a large ovarian growth and also dye used in CT scan caused kidney damage so have been in hospital. On fast track and seeing gynae on Friday re surgery.

We have a holiday cottage booked in a couple of weeks which is paid for £700 plus.

Last Friday I messaged the cottage owner explaining situation re possible surgery and asked if option was available to find someone else to take cottage at reduced price from our friends or their contacts if unable to come

Reply came back saying they could ask contacts or we would substitute and to let them know what we wanted to do. That day I was admitted to hospital and emails were not loading in a&e so didn’t have chance to respond. The next morning another email came through which I received ok they had found someone to take the booking for £300 and they assumed I would be ok with that - well I wasn’t as I wanted to go on the trip still if possible and would be able to know more after appt this week. I said I was surprised they had ahead without my agreement and that I was in hospital and would speak to husband and get back to them. This was Saturday morning - At no point did I expect to be able to cancel the trip for a refund the financial risk was all mine.

Spoke to husband and agreed we would keep the booking in place til I knew plan re surgery and worst case was we would lose the full £700plus. So I sent an email on Monday when I was home and feeling better saying we were just going to see what Friday brings and if we couldn’t make it would see if family or friends could take it.

Today I get an email saying I have put them in a bad situation as the other party have booked annual leave and to give bank details for the £300.

I didn’t ask them to resell the trip , it was clear I was looking at options if I were unable to come due to surgery and I am not happy they went ahead and agreed a very low price with another party. I feel very uncomfortable now even if I am able to go , the owners live next door and the tone of the email was pretty nasty.

I have said that if they are effectively cancelling my booking I would expect a full refund , they are now saying we cannot substitute for family or friends either.

I have had no response to email earlier where I said they have acted without authority in reselling for £300 and they have created the issue - if I need to I will go to small claims.

Am I in the wrong here ? It’s the last thing I need at the moment tbh

I accept that however I still didn’t confirm how I wanted to proceed in terms of reselling / passing trip onto family and they explicitly asked for me to confirm how I wanted to proceed

To be fair though, you weren't, as you were out of contact for a bit in a fairly urgent situation.

It does come across like you were not able to go and wanting to cancel. Someone should have been in contact with the owners while you were in hospital and unable to communicate with them.
It was all handled very poorly unfortunately.
Hope you’re feeling better.

I do think there was room for misunderstanding, and your best approach would be to acknowledge that and seek to achieve some sort of compromise. Is it worth asking if you can swap to another week? Or even next year?

I'm afraid I would have taken "It's looking likely we won't be able to come, I'm so disappointed as we are all so looking forward to it" as a strong indication that you wouldn't be going. If you then start asking about options, it does suggest that even more, and that you were looking at options to recoup the most money. The way you worded it muddied the waters. I get why that happened - you had more important things on your mind at the time.

But they had to make a decision about what to do when they didnt' hear back from you. They probably assumed you were incapacitated in hospital and therefore definitely not able to come!

It's a difficult situation as you didn't have a contract or terms and conditions and when it comes to rebookings due to cancellation then terms and conditions can vary. I think there has just been confusion over what your intentions were. As it is, perhaps you're better off not going anyway if you've just had abdominal surgery? Won't you have stitches that'll be healing? Possibility of infection? Not able to lift luggage etc? I think I may have just postponed anyway.

I hope you sort everything out and manage to get a nice break away somewhere, at some point.

I really think you were both unclear (sounded like you were cancelling) AND not reachable. Seems like they tried to do their best for you.

Legally I don't know, but morally I don't really see how you can insist on now choosing to demand something else from them - sorry.

Best wishes for your health!

I don't think your email was all that clear, and I'm still not really understanding from your posts.

^ This. If I were the owner I would assume that your first email was trying to break it to me gently that you wanted to cancel. I would assume that the radio silence meant that you were Ok with the change. In your position I wouldn't have contacted the owner at all until I knew what was happening health wise, unless in the t and cs it said you couldn't substitute people under any circumstances.

So does the bank transfer request mean that you will get £300 back?

Anyway, I hope health wise things are getting better.

I also read your e-mail like you were cancelling, sorry.

I do think you should get your money back if they've re-sold the holiday, though, but if you don't have a contract and only paid by bank transfer, I'm not sure how you'll enforce it.

To me, Email reads like you are asking them to find someone to transfer the booking to. Would have been considerate of them to slow down and accommodate your health concerns but the email is unclear.

If you can afford to take a hit £200, refund £500 they rent cottage for £500 and draw a line under it so you can focus on your health without additional stress.

I too read the email as though you were cancelling.

I think there has been miscommunication on both parts and they thought they were doing you a favour by getting somebody to take your place for a part refund.

Wishing you well.

Sorry juts realised it wasn’t you that did the but about finding a different booking, but definitely sounds like you were cancelling and ‘check our options’ sounds like coded - will we get our money back - so holiday let people presumably think they did you a favour by finding someone to take the booking and refund you the difference?

I can see some ambiguity in your email, however you do plainly state that you are finding out the options and everything is up in the air.

As there wasn't total clarity I would have expected the owner to err on the side of caution and not rebook it without your confirmation, particularly as they asked you confirm how you wanted to proceed.

Unless they can produce confirmation from you that you want to go ahead and cancel or resell, I don't think they have a leg to stand on.

I think you've misunderstood! OP is the guest, she isn't the host

Appreciate all the responses . going to have a chat with husband but ultimately won’t be in a position til I see gynae on Friday to book alternative - we can always go another week , having the surgery as quickly as possible remains main focus.

I have to admit that I feel a bit sorry for the holiday accommodation owners.

You sent a really unclear email which could easily be interpreted as being written by someone that was definitely going to cancel and was looking for ways to recoup some of the money you stood to lose. From their perspective they could have done nothing, hoped you would cancel and they would get to keep the £700 and potentially also don't have to pay the cost of a changeover clean, gas, electricity etc. This was the most financially lucrative and easiest option for them.

Instead they went out of their way to find some guests to stay who are paying them £300 which they are forwarding on to you. You now though are really angry with them and want them to let down these guests which would cause them problems.

Unfortunately I think cases like this are why people are often reluctant to help and do more than the bare minimum as you risk getting embroiled in all sorts of unintended consequences and people are rarely grateful for the fact you have tried to go the extra mile.

I also read your email as laying the ground for a last minute cancellation and as they didn't hear anything they did what they thought was best to get you a partial refund 😩

They have made a mistake, but it would be helpful I think if you can pass the whole thing to someone else to deal with now. Perhaps present them with an option: the owners can move your booking to another weekend or they give you a full refund.

The fact they responded asking you to confirm what you wanted to do means they shouldn’t of gone ahead and offered it out till
you responded. Untill you out and out said. I want to cancel my booking it’s yours not theirs to resell.

We used to do holiday let’s. I would have never resold without explicit proof in writing clear as day you was cancelling.

I’d want an entire refund for them cancelling at this point or the stay as booked.

Not some part refund As they have cancelled your booking by not waiting for you to clearly and explicitly getting back to them with what you required.

It sounds like a big misunderstanding

You definitely sound like you are gearing up to cancel and trying to suss out a refund off them

You should have let your DH deal with it so you didn't have issues with hospital WiFi as, with the medical conditions you mentioned, they may have assumed the lack of reply was because you were too ill in hospital and therefore them trying to recoup even some of the funds was them doing something good for a very ill person.

They have offered £300 back, which is about half.

Tbh, sounds like you muddied the waters a bit. I just wouldn’t have mentioned it, and when it go nearer, if you couldn’t go, just sold it on to friends or family maybe at reduced cost.

I'm sorry for your situation. But if you didn't want them to take any action, why tell them at all? What difference would it have made to wait and either lose your money or go?

I think they have interpreted the advance warning as 'try to do something about this ' and so they have.

Yep I wasn’t going to message until after Friday but decided it would be better to do it earlier to see if we could transfer etc.

I knew there was no question of getting a refund so close to the trip at end of month and started my email stating that but I was unsure if we could offer to others to go in our place etc as had no t&c’s - I did appreciate them offering to ask around and still do but not to do that and agree price without agreement , it was only 5pm on Friday they asked me to let them know how I wanted to proceed and by 9am Saturday they’d gone ahead and arranged it.

Interesting split in responses and lesson learnt on being more explicit in my comms

I can understand why you’re miffed but it sounds like there’s been mis-communication on both sides and ultimately, the owners shouldn’t be out of pocket because of it as you’re the one who was (potentially) shifting the goalposts. If you accept the £300 refund, they’ve then still only made the original £700ish from the original booking which seems fair.

Have you got travel insurance? That would be a better bet in future if you unexpectedly can’t travel.

I said YABU before reading about you booking directly with no Ts and Cs. Trickier knowing that - I know with cottages.com etc you wouldn’t get a refund at this point and agree your email was unclear. CF though, someone they know has it for a bargain now, subsidised by you.

I do also think your DH needed to handle it. You weren’t best placed at all.

Best of luck with upcoming procedures.