Double booking for holiday let - where do I stand?

Ivywestpop

Hi all, 
We (me, partner, 2 year old, and my parents) were all booked for a holiday cottage arriving 26th September for 1 week. We booked through a website and received all the correct and expected correspondence from them; booking confirmation email, automated holiday count down emails, and check in information a week before check in (key code, directions, phone numbers etc). However, when we arrived yesterday another couple also arrived who had booked through a different booking website. It was their booking that the owner was expecting, and had reported to have no knowledge of our booking. 
When we spoke to the booking company they advised that they are unsure how this has happened as they did not have it as a confirmed booking, only a provisional booking (not sure what this means?!) - looking in to it now I see that they had not taken the money at the time of booking, however we did not check this as we had no reason to think that it had not gone out - the website said paid and we received a booking information email saying we had paid. 
Where do we now stand with this?!
I feel that the company have let us down hugely - we planned for the holiday, have not booked any other holidays as this was our holiday, being self employed neither of us have work booked in this week at a financial loss, and we were stranded in North Wales at 6pm Saturday night with a toddler!! The fact that the money had not been taken - does this change things?!
Thanks in advance all for any guidance or suggestions. 

twopenny

If the owner was expecting the other couple then that all went through in the proper way.

I'd say that the company you booked through said you'd paid, sent all the correct information so in this case they are at fault and should be finding you another property as quickly as possible regardless of whether payment had actually gone out of your account.

You had been told it was paid for.

However I don't think you have a claim to book into an hotel at their expense. You need to talk to them again and ask for another property asap.

Ivywestpop

twopenny said:

If the owner was expecting the other couple then that all went through in the proper way.

I'd say that the company you booked through said you'd paid, sent all the correct information so in this case they are at fault and should be finding you another property as quickly as possible regardless of whether payment had actually gone out of your account.

You had been told it was paid for.

However I don't think you have a claim to book into an hotel at their expense. You need to talk to them again and ask for another property asap.

Thank you - we ended up driving home that night as it was late when this all happened and didn’t seem possible to find somewhere with a 2 year old in tow! The company didn’t have anywhere local to offer as an alternative 

twopenny

Ah, the joys of parenthood! They don't tell you about this.

I hope you don't go through that company again. Very poor. They could at least have offered a voucher. Not that I would take it without a lot of grovelling and a huge appology. But internet companies don't tend to do that.

missile

Unfortunately, this is not a unique event. Name and shame so others may avoid that company.

Aranyani

How much money have you lost from your week with no work? 

ToxicWomble

Aranyani said:

How much money have you lost from your week with no work? 

Technically nothing as they weren’t expecting to work anyway.

Aranyani

ToxicWomble said:

Aranyani said:

How much money have you lost from your week with no work? 

Technically nothing as they weren’t expecting to work anyway.

If they'd known in advance they wouldn't have their holiday they would have had time to book work in though. 

ToxicWomble

It wouldn’t be a claimable cost either way so probably a moot point
If the property was available - they wouldn’t have earnt anything
If the property wasn’t available - they wouldn’t have earnt anything
Therefore their actual claimable cost for loss of earnings = 0

Sandtree

The "problem" is that most holiday let owners dont have a web enabled booking system and advertise their properties on multiple independent sites and therefore its not possible to do a straight through booking because website A wont know if website B happens to have booked those same dates hence you provisionally book it and the property owner has to accept the booking (obviously after checking their calendar or whatever it is they use to manage the dates).

I would suggest you need to re-read the emails carefully to see if they really were a booking confirmation or just a request confirmation. If you were wanting to take action against the agents you'd also need to review their website and see what it says both about the process (ie the need for confirmation) and limits to liability the terms try to apply. 

Ivywestpop

ToxicWomble said:

It wouldn’t be a claimable cost either way so probably a moot point
If the property was available - they wouldn’t have earnt anything
If the property wasn’t available - they wouldn’t have earnt anything
Therefore their actual claimable cost for loss of earnings = 0

Interesting point - however, there is the view that the potential earnings for that week would have been earned if we had known of the error. It was this particular house we have wanted to visit for a while, and realistically would not have booked another holiday if this had not been advertised/sold as available