Any clever tips to find a good-quality hotel/cottage in the UK that's not fully booked in July?

[lawn]

We were booked to go abroad 10-17 July but of course that looks highly unlikely, and everywhere in the UK seems to be fully booked, unsurprisingly.

We're not fussy about location and will have a reasonable budget when we get our refund - so a fairly luxurious hotel or rental would be ideal, but we'll consider anything!

Any websites that'll alert us to last-minute availability/cancellations (other than lastminute.com)? Apps? Insider knowledge?

I would consider areas you'd like to go, join a local FB page to that area and ask if anyone knows of any holiday cottage of the specification you need availability locally. You might stumble upon a gem that's not advertised on normal channels - I know of one locally to me that generally has business people usage in the week but is often available weekends, for example. The owners sometimes pop up and reply when people say 'I've got a family get together on xx date anyone know of a B&B '

Thanks Ariela, that's a really good idea. We're totally open to anywhere in the UK (except London, where we live!) so that would be quite labour intensive, but I guess we could try it for a couple of areas.

You could try these people: m.facebook.com/pages/category/Vacation-Home-Rental/Selkie-Retreats-Holiday-Cottage-at-Whitesands-Beach-Pembrokeshire-121551051227585/?locale2=en_GB

We’ve stayed there. She sometimes has availability as she doesn’t advertise widely.

Quality Cottages in Wales have some availability for that date. I searched under West Wales and 3 places came up.

Try somewhere not very touristy.

Put up a Facebook post saying you are looking. Someone might have a holiday home you can borrow.

Split your stay into two stays of 3/4 nights each between two properties close together - really easy to do this via airbnb search function and check reviews on Tripadvisor etc

You could try homeswap if you live somewhere interesting? I have never done this and don't know how viable it is just an idea.

Thanks all - great tips all round. Doing some searches now. Probably not a house swap as ours is a mess with renovations, but it looks like there may be one or two cottages available for a few nights - we don't need to go for the whole week.

We took a gamble and booked something with no reviews on AirBnB that had only just been listed. It’s paid off because it has loads of 5 star reviews now. It was the only thing we managed to find that looked half decent!

I'd book direct with owners eg this site if you search Scotland:

www.internet-cottages.com/Scotland/cottages.php

Lots of availability.

Thank you!

We stayed a cottage in this lovely row of cottages on the Isle of Wight - they emailed me last week to say they’ve just opened a new one (Spinnakers) and a cancellation for a three week booking in July for Sea View Cottage, so it’s possible those might be still available:

website here

There is lots of availability on the standard holiday cottages websites - cottages.com, Sykes etc, air b n b, Vrbo. Depends on budget and location. Just search and you’ll find something!

We live in the NW but not Cumbria and it's lovely up here but everyone says to us "oh how nice to be in the NW as you can go to Cumbria", we don't bother because it's nice in all the other counties! Just not quite so hilly.
Just booked a really cheap campsite near us for a school holiday weekend. Lots of availability.

Try searching for short breaks??

I’ve had this problem, I solved it by booking 2 nights in one place, then another 2 nights, then 1 etc etc