Hoseasons cock up - asked to leave holiday early

[Jaffajiffy]

We are on a long-awaited holiday in the UK. I booked with Landal because we had a great holiday with them In Belgium last summer. Yesterday morning was reading an article about how Hoseasons have cancelled holidays www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-53758385 feeling smug I’d ‘booked direct’ with Landal.
A few hours later, I had a phone call saying we had to leave our holiday early. Turns out Hoseasons handles Landal in the UK and neither is the actual provider, and the place we were in was fully booked

Spent the entire afternoon and evening getting to the bottom of who actually sold me a holiday.
And now the Hoseasons ad for a “Staycation” is at the top of my screen.
Words to the wise: 1. A staycation is actually when you stay in your own home.

1. Hoseasons are rubbish.
2. Always book direct. I thought I had. So the final point is to make triple sure you know the seller of what you’re buying

Sounds stressful. How early? Are they refunding you the whole holiday?

How early do you have to leave? Stay put. Leave it to the provider to sort it out. Not your problem.

Yes, why are you leaving? You’ve paid, you’re actually there, this isn’t your problem to sort.

More detail.
Booked a 10-night stay on the Landal site. I saw the same accommodation offered on Hoseasons but only 7/14d options. Landal passed the booking to Hoseasons who booked it manually onto the provider’s system as a 7-day stay.
I spent the whole afternoon on the phone trying to get Landal and Hoseasons to sort it out. Of course, Hoseasons keep their customer at arm's length and I was told ‘Richard’ didn’t deal with customers directly.
Someone from Landal in Holland rang to apologise but said it was down to Hoseasons to fix. The office on site said they had an email from ‘Richard’ offering a refund for the 3 nights plus 10% off the rest.
At 6pm I had a call from an agent at Hoseasons. Not Richard, someone too junior to make decisions. By this time, I’d found a family room at a hotel and wanted Hoseasons to cover the cost.
They knew about the issue at Midday and did not get in touch til 6pm and now say they can’t deal with anything until Monday morning.

We are at Kenwick Park in Lincolnshire. The staff here are doing their best and I feel sorry for them. It’s a good point about not leaving and I did say that but I feel terrible saying someone else’s holiday should be ruined when we’ve had a week here already. And saying you’re not moving and actually refusing to move are very different things. The next booking is due today so they ‘let’ us stay one more night. The hotel is the Kenwick Park hotel which is branded Best Western and the manager has said we can stay in a family room.
So we are moving from a 3-bed lodge to one room in the hotel.

Something tells me you're not going to see this money back OP.

Wow that is pretty crap. I hope you get the refund and the 10 percent off

Reading my own posts, I’d be saying the same thing! Hoseasons refused to put anything in writing yesterday and said they’d have to go back to Landal for the refund.

I would be pushing for more compensation, the two holidays are completely different and not what you booked.

Push for a full refund.

Id be livid and would be asking for a full refund.

So was it a breakdown in communication ? ie you booked what you thought was going to be a 10 day stay, but their only 2 options are either 7 or 14 day durations. Did you receive their booking confirmation with the actual dates of your stay?

It's a bit difficult to follow what actually happened from what you've written

It is amazing how hard it can be to work out who contracts are with on many websites and I am a lawyer and still find it unclear. I also often have to look at them and lots seem to breach the law on disclosure of who you are contracting with or make it very hard to find. Sometimes you get an invoice and that says (after you have booked).

It sounds like you have a contract with the company L who then booked with the accommodation company and had keyed in 7 not 14 nights. So L has an obligation to provide you with the 10 nights. I agree with people above about refusing to move out but I you have and are in a local hotel in one room.

What evidence do you have with Landal that you booked 10 nights - eg a receipt or booking page? That is the key document. Make sure you keep some communications by email whilst you are away to Landal making it clear you expect them to pay for the extra nights in the hotel (and I think some compensation too as it is very disrupting to have to move) It sounds like you got night 8 as no one was going into your place. So 2 nights are in play - you certainly should get the hotel cost of those nights back form Landal.

Our whole family holiday was cancelled (late June holiday) but luckily I got the full deposit back( we booked in early Jan). I gave them 14 days as is the law for a package holiday (ours was one of those - flight and accommodation included together).

Ah just seen, it's the fact the two providers offered different things so your order for 10 night stay got lost in translation between the 2 companies.

Definitely their cockup up OP, if your booking was transacted with Landau, and they offer as 10 night stay then as a Consumer you have a right to a full refund because you did not get what you purchased. If they give you hassle about the refund, CAB are great with advice on Consumer Rights, they normally have templates etc to send these cowboys.

Go for full refund. Get in touch directly with the CEO (I think it’s Simon Altham that heads up Awaze that is the parent company) and bypass the useless costumer service staff.

Do you have all the documentation showing you booked and paid for 10 days? Confirmations etc?

That’s bad, I’m currently at a caravan site in the new forest and lots of people are turning up to see if there’s space (there isn’t).

Camping in the forest which run the big campsites round here have kept their campsites closed but not emailed anyone. People are turning up every day after driving hours and finding the campsites are closed. They have booked and paid nd had confirmation emails.

Thats disgraceful. I wouldnt be moving without something in Writing.

I have a booking confirmation from Landal for 10 nights.
The lodge ‘let’ us stay the 8th night and we agreed to move into a family room for two free nights and get a refund for 3 lodge nights plus 10%. But late last night Hoseasons were saying they would not refund us if we moved to the hotel.

The latest:
Dear ,
Thank you very much for your email.I am sorry that you’re having to deal with this when you’re not even working today. I just need that in writing from Hoseasons or Landal, please, or you could forward the email they sent you yesterday. I think on reading the Cab website, I am entitled to a full refund, but I will drop that if I can get something in writing before we leave the lodge.

It was after speaking with you that they rang and said they would not give me the refund, so you can see why I am unwilling to move when their phone call to me was that I wouldn’t get a refund.

On 15 Aug 2020, at 08:13, wrote:

Good morning Joanna

Thank you for your email. I did manage to speak to Richard last night who is employed as a senior account manager at Landal and he assured me you would be refunded the amount discussed yesterday . I explained to the Landal team that we were happy for you to stay in the hotel complimentary and we wouldn’t be charging Landal for the room as you are our customer we cannot offer you the lodge as it is booked but we can offer alternative accommodation in the hotel as a gesture for the error made with your booking.
If I could allow you to stay in the lodge of course we would but we have so many bookings arriving today and it’s just not possible I am so sorry.
I hope this email provides you with reassurance that moving to the hotel will not affect your compensation at all.
We would require you to depart the loads at 9.30am today and we have organised an early checkin at the hotel for you.
Kind regards

Head of sales

And now this:
Hi,

Thank you for your email , unfortunately I will not be able to obtain all the information you are requesting I guess until Monday either so I think I will come in and do my best to make sure you can stay in the lodge until Monday then you will be having the holiday you booked x
So remain in the lodge and I will be in touch in the next hour with confirmation I will try and cancel some bookings arriving today

I wouldn’t leave the lodge either. The incoming family can stay in the hotel for 2 nights and sort it out. They can hardly manhandle you out.

Op your previous post has your name in it x

Nope, I'd want the money in my account before I moved anywhere. You've booked and paid, this us their mess to sort out, not yours.

You are still not getting the holiday you booked though as you have all this hassle to deal with while away, hardly restful. I’d keep arguing for at least a partial refund.

I'd stay in the lodge and go for a refund. Why should you move out?

Stay put!

Don't allow it to stress you, get on and do what you've planned and have a lovely day.

It's not your place to spend time you've laid to have a holiday sorting out another holiday companies mistake.