Holidaycottages.co.uk

Noshton12

The company have let us move ours to next year for around the same amount. Maybe this would help you?
I know it's not ideal for everyone

[Deleted User]

robHH said:

Hello 
we booked our Cornwall holiday in Early January this year for a June holiday
we paid in full and included cancellation insurance 
now when all this kicked off we kept our eye on the holidaycottages.co.uk website and logged into our account to check on updates 
Its very clear we won’t be able to go there in June and I contacted them to cancel( by messenger only as they have disabled their phone lines)  and they said sure Standard cancellation so you will get 20 to 40% back 
erm NO
ive got cancellation insurance so they messaged back 
please contact them as they are a 3rd party insurance provider and although bought on our site is nowt to do with them
So ok let’s contact them ........
Towergate
again they have disabled the phone lines leaving only an e mail address 
3 e mails in 4 weeks with no response at all other than the automatic response 
I have contacted my local MP to see if they can help 
what more can be done surely they can’t get away with just ignoring us 
We would love to go on holiday to Cornwall we love it there but come on 
If the worst comes to the worst il travel done there myself and get a massive banner made and contact the local press once there
SHAME on Holidaycottages.co.uk as it’s on them as far as I’m concerned 

Hi Robb,
When did you cancel your holiday?   Your mistake was actually cancelling the holiday yourself.   Too late now, but you should have waited until your holiday was cancelled.  They can argue that you terminated your holiday yourself, in which case the penalties as laid out in the original t's an c's would apply (agree it is a technicality but it gives them more ammunition because you pre-empted the situation) .  It will possibly be the same response from your insurers?   Your insurance covered you for accident/illness preventing you from travelling presumably?

Once they cancel your holiday you could try recouping the money via your credit card company?   I doubt very much your MP would be able to help or the papers, they are inundated with similar stories even from people who have waited until their holiday was officially cancelled.   

Spacesimian2016

Hi

Sharing a holidaycottages.co.uk process FWIW- any advice/thoughts welcome.

Booked Nov19 with deposit paid and balance to be paid 20 March 20. With the pandemic starting up and lockdown imminent I wanted to speak to holidaycottages.co.uk to discuss scenarios before completing payment in case lockdown affected the holiday concerned in May. Holidaycottages went into a coms shutdown with no calls taken or online chat - despite their payment reminder emails still mentioning them as methods of contact. With no way of knowing what my situation would be if I made the full payment and the booking made not possible by travel restrictions I had no choice but to transfer the booking before the 2O March payment deadline as they were not engaging directly with their customers and their queries.There was no mention of a cancellation being made at any point/ no email confirming this, just a new booking email.

Time passes and  it transpires that the booking period would have been adversely affected by lockdown travel restrictions as well as having a trip member being at risk. I speak to Customer Services who don't agree to a refund and send me a form to be completed and sent back for another part of Customer Services to review which I do immediately, at end of last month. Nearly 2 wks pass and then just receive a call from Customer Services where again I am refused a refund- lots of mention of T&Cs, what the government guidelines were then, that I cancelled the booking when there is no official confirmation of that/use of that terms, just a transfer and new booking. Offered options are: transferred booking/ voucher. There was no admission or acknowledgement of their non-engagement being an extremely key factor - just that their website covered everything, which was not the case for me. I had to take the transfer booking option as it was the only way to message them on the website at time of balance payment as they were not available to discuss my situation but they are choosing to ignore this and are trying to apply T&Cs to everything, which they seem to be changing/amending all the time.

When I mentioned recent developments around the Competition & Marketing Authority encouraging other travel operators to do the right thing by their customers and issue refunds for bookings made impossible by the pandemic the person just said their situation was different to those operators. I have raised this with the C&MA to make them aware and I suggest that if you are having issues with holidaycottages.co.uk or any other part of The Travel Chapter group then doing the same could only help. Been to this part of the world repeatedly via another company but the property we were re-visiting is now with holidaycottages.co.uk unfortunately. Never had issues before and did not use a CC for deposit - lesson learned there but in meantime any suggestions as to how to progress this would be much appreciated - hopefully we can all yet get what we need from this outfit in holding them to account and making them do right by their customers.

Thank you all

Noshton12

When have you transferred the booking to and what problems do you foresee with going on the new date? 

coey

Don't give in.....Just received final £87.50 refund from my May booking with STS Holidays [ Snowdonia Tourist Services ]
Total refund of just under £700. Took some time , received £600 plus in a couple of stages via negotiation and threats of either chargeback or small claims court action. Final £87.50 paid into my account via a charge back claim on my credit card.