Cottages4you: A Cautionary Tale

[cortisolcrush]

Myself, DH and our DDs are off on holiday on Friday. We have a long weekend with friends booked at a cottage near Pickering.

Everyone is organised. We're travelling from Durham after school. A friend and her DS are travelling from Humberside, her DH flying is in from business in the US (Heathrow, then Manchester, then train to Malton) and our other friends are driving up from the south-east.

The cottage is luxurious: 3 en-suite double rooms - check! A room each for our DDs and our friends' DS - check! A woodburner - check! Wifi - check! Animals on site to keep the kids amused - check! In Pickering! What could be more perfect?

So, when I rang Cottages4you/Cottages.com this morning to confirm the postcode and chase up the paperwork, I was more than a little shocked to find that the cottage owner had 'rejected' our booking (in favour of a week long booking over half-term, natch). Cottages4you had neglected to mention this to us.

So we received a 'Thank you for Reserving Your Holiday. Your reference number is XXXXX' email on 9th January. Some time between then and now, our reservation was cancelled. And they didn't think to mention it...

[NewLife4Me]

I would contact them and say it's not good enough and get them on that tv programme.
We did this with Haven and got a full refund.
The trick is to keep refusing what they offer. Once you agree you've lost any further compensation.

[Plateofcrumbs]

Ooh that is rubbish! Definitely escalate and push for more than £80!

For what it is worth dealing direct with owners is no guarantee you won't have problems. We once turned up at a remote rental in Spain we'd rented directly to find it was still very much occupied by another family - they'd managed to double book us! Fortunately after some flapping about they found us alternative accommodation but it was a stressful start to the holiday.

[hellsbells99]

Hi Op. There is one available in Pickering with Owners Direct - property 1892808 (for some reason I can't paste in the link)

[undertheocean]

hellsbells I have to admit I have double booked before and it is the most awful feeling. Fortunately I realised the night before and I was able to sort it and both couples were fabulous at being understanding. No one missed out and in fact one lucky couple got an amazing upgrade at (of course) no extra cost!
We are human and mistakes do happen but it is how you handle them that is important.

[tdm1]

Have you tried Housetrip? We've used them several times, twice in France and once in Amsterdam and it's always been fantastic.

[OhYouLuckyDuck]

That's awful. We've booked with them a lot but we won't be booking with them any more.

[TreadSoftlyOnMyDreams]

A few of these are free though you might have to rent 2+ cottages close together. Might be handy if you teens though provided one house has enough space to get together for group dinners.
www.croptonforestlodge.co.uk/

www.groupaccommodation.com/locations/pickering
Website might be useful

This is gorgeous and available Fri - Monday. You might get a late deal otherwise it's a hefty £1400
www.groupaccommodation.com/properties/long-barn-appleton-le-moors-north-yorkshire

And yes, I would be making it their problem as they accepted and confirmed the booking.

[TreadSoftlyOnMyDreams]

This one is cheaper and comes with bats [pic 6]. I wouldnt describe it as luxurious though and personally the furry winged rats would put me off.

www.groupaccommodation.com/properties/great-fryupdale-centre-whitby-north-yorkshire

I hope you sort something out.

[piebald]

Always better to book direct if you can , cheaper for you and the owner. Holiday Lettings add a £60 booking fee onto my prices
//www.mullselfcatering.co.uk

[cortisolcrush]

Thanks everyone for all your help

We have 3000 a few people arriving round about now but I will look at all the suggestions later on. Not stressed at all. Oh no.

[momb]

My sympathies OP. So annoying!

I don't think it's just Cottages4U though. It's a risk with all on-line purchasing. I bought a new bed in Argos 40%off furniture promotion. Took a day off on delivery day and it didn't turn up. On checking my paypal account I found that the payment had been rejected by Argos only 2 days after I'd ordered. I'd never received an email from anyone to say it wasn't coming after all. Of course by then the promotion was finished and I ended up paying full price....

[MeanwhileHighAboveTheField]

Beautiful place, undertheocean. We have friends who stay a wee bit south of you and love to go down and visit them

[cortisolcrush]

ooops, .., arriving for DD's birthday tea...

[TreadSoftlyOnMyDreams]

www.gorgeouscottages.com/ has some stunning properties with two large places available in Yorkshire. Sorry but don't know the area well enough to see if they are close to Pickering.

[lavendersun]

I was just going to suggest Gorgeous Cottages, we are staying in one of their cottages next week while we house hunt, not far from my parents but they don't really like our dog staying with them so I always book a cottage.

I would phone GC and explain your problem, it is a small company and I imagine they would be good at helping if they could.

[stayathomegardener]

Try Shoreline cottages in Whitby, they are BRILLIANT!
Really accomadating and will discount if they can.

[BrieAndChilli]

This happens to s a couple go years ago with a different company website that is similar
Booked an apartment in London for a stay starting on Easter Sunday. Email on the Saturday (so day before) to say owner had to cancel our booking and the website would refund our money. We were not happy as most places fully booked and we had bought attraction and rail tickets etc so we rang the website and they agreed to find us another apartment and pay the difference in price.

[wheelofapps]

underthesea

that's really interesting about Holiday Lettings / TripAdvisor.

I wanted to begin to let my house this year.
I accepted my first booking, in Dec, for May (a weekend).

Unfortunately, in late Dec I had unexpected surgery and currently have mobility problems in both legs and need a spinal specialist.

I cannot honour the let, or any other lettings and have withdrawn my property.

I contacted HL/TA as soon as I was out of hospital and asked them how best to let the guest know (as you have to go via them and it wasn't clear) and what alternative accommodation could be arranged for them. They wouldn't discuss it at ALL but told me I'd need to pay a fine of nearly £150.

I had an email from the Guest over two weeks later very upset as they had only just been notified and it didn't sound as though HL/TA had offered them any help.

It's really put me off (and I was the one who 'let down' someone, though unavoidably).

If I am able to 'start up' again I would want to do direct bookings.
That would have allowed me to offer a hugely discounted (or free) future booking for my Guest, to have helped them find alternative accommodation, and to have notifed them nearly 3 weeks earlier.

[CockwombleJeff]

That's why I don't go with companies anymore that have loads of cottages on their books.

[PirateSmile]

I was looking at Cottages4u because we need a cottage in Derbyshire for three weeks in summer. I don't think we'll bother with them now!

[thatwouldbeanecumenicalmatter]

Well I'm sure that £80 offer was worth it in lost revenue from this thread alone...what a shame not

Awful situation OP I really hope you get alternative accommodation sorted soon.

Have you tried Hoseasons OP? Iirc there was a MN code to get 5% off kicking about in the offers section on here.

[cortisolcrush]

I should have known better than to use Cottages4you. That's COTTAGES4YOU is case anyone missed it. Still searching...

[cortisolcrush]

Or CottagesFuckYou as they are now affectionately known in our house.

[cortisolcrush]

Still looking....

Thanks for the link to Gorgeous Cottages. I got in touch and they were very helpful, though still too expensive. But definitely a site that I would go to again.

Just to reiterate in case anyone happened to miss: DO NOT USE COTTAGES4YOU.

[cortisolcrush]

They are now saying that we can only have the £80 as a discount against booking a cottage with them. Despite there being nothing of a similar standard and price in either Yorkshire, the Lakes nor the Peaks. Bastards.