Hotels.com sold me a property that was 3.5 hours from where it said

Alderbank

OP, you have chosen to publish in full the personal home telephone number of the host. It can be traced to a private house in Exeter. This might be seen as harassment and you should remove it.

JGB1955

theoretica said:

Exactly - and EX8 7EB does not exist.  Which perhaps may help track down where the error came from.

The error comes from a mix-up between Cross Farm, Cheldon and Cross Farm Infant School, Frimley.

theonlywayisup

theoretica said:

theonlywayisup said:

Even the post code on your booking is incorrect, Cheldon Cross Farm (Chulmleigh Devon) is EX18 7EB.

Exactly - and EX8 7EB does not exist.  Which perhaps may help track down where the error came from.

It is clearly a typo on that post code. Op books EX8 7EB and post code is EX18 7EB.  However something more serious has occurred in the booking site/agent confusing the property/address.

Sandtree

Jenni_D said:

mobileron said:

How did u pay??

theonlywayisup said:

Yes OP how did you pay?

Even the post code on your booking is incorrect, Cheldon Cross Farm (Chulmleigh Devon) is EX18 7EB.

Agreed. Who you paid is who your contract is with, thus who you should pursue. How you paid determines what avenues you have for recovering the payment.

No, a company can collect money on behalf of someone else... buy anything with PayPal and you are paying PayPal but they aren't the one sending you your new oven or providing the hotel booking. 

wesleyad

The location stuff is getting in the way of a simpler issue. The OP booked a room/cottage for 2 adults (as clearly shown on their image) and were told no children over 4 (which they didn't have). So they upheld their end of the contract. The cottage owners cannot just cancel at last minute (and then keep all the money!) for terms they decided to add whenever they wish.

OP you need to try the chargeback route if you went debit card, or if paypal open a dispute. Or if you have a twitter account you can tweet hotels.com and you will get a fast response.

Sandtree

wesleyad said:
The cottage owners cannot just cancel at last minute (and then keep all the money!) for terms they decided to add whenever they wish.

To play devils advocate, we are not privy to the exact conversations/timeline etc... there is a version of events where the OP made contact after realising the cottage isn't suitable for their needs because its not where it was stated to be and they say its of no use to them and the booking is then cancelled based on the OP saying they won't be using it. 

theoretica

Alderbank said:

OP, you have chosen to publish in full the personal home telephone number of the host. It can be traced to a private house in Exeter. This might be seen as harassment and you should remove it.

A number that is online associated with quite a few holiday cottages - I doubt it is a personal home number.

Grumpy_chap

I can't help the OP directly with any more than others have already commented.

What I would say, though, is we all need to learn that online travel booking sites can, and do, make mistakes.
I previously saw a "too good to be true" holiday to Cancun, Mexico a few years back and found the included flights were to Turkey - gladly spotted before booking.

A recent thread covered a similar "incorrect flights" situation:
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/78990622

Yesterday, I was looking at a holiday to Spain and saw this result for a fortnight (the good thing being that the error is the wrong way so you don't book by mistake):


The learning we all can take from these scenarios is to check, double check and check again.

Harder to do than say, especially given the dynamic nature of travel sites with rapidly changing prices meaning if you see a "good" price, you are pressured into taking it without really thinking whether it is a "good" price or a "too good to be true" price.  Add to that the fact that individuals do not know the name and post code for every area (even within the UK) and won't know every small airport that serves a region - many years ago my Dad booked us flights from Lydd airport to go to Spain (because it was affordable compared to Heathrow) and the saving in airport made it worth the hassle.  When you book a trip to some far off land how do you know if you are flying to the main airport for a city (Venice Marco Polo) or an outlier (Treviso)?  Even if you did know, but the saving was large enough would you still take it?

Perhaps all these online booking platforms need to have a short (48-hour) cancel and full refund window as standard rules to allow bookings to be made and all the details to be checked before things become fixed and certain.

zoob

The cottage states its for 2 people but the OP seems to be a party off 3, just thinking it could be a breach off contract and that's why the owners cancelled

Certainly cottage being a great distance from where it's stated is definitely misleading so also a breach off contract on the owners part 

sheramber

chiara said:

It said entire cottage and the terms and conditions from the owners said they can’t accommodate for children over the age of 4 which lead me to believe small children are allowed to the property. I don’t need a separate room for my baby so booked the entire property with 1 bedroom. 

My partner could’ve at least stayed had the property been where it said it was 

On the hotels.com entry it says no children except babes in arms but it does also state  

• Max. guests: 2     so 2 adults and one baby would not be acceptable.    The OP has not answered how he paid- only implied that it was not a credit card.