Booking accommodation through Trip Advisor - Holiday Lettings.co.uk. All cancelled after 1.11.24!!

joyceabrante

I too received an email from Holiday Lettings advising me that my booking for December 2024 was cancelled. You would think they could at least honour existing bookings prior to withdrawing from this market. My refund has since been processed, but (probably due to exchange rates - villa was priced in euros) I'm actually out of pocket as well!! They've had my deposit money since January 2024, and this is what they do! Angry doesn't begin to describe it!

J_B

As an owner who's used Holiday Lettings for many years, I have only just had their email today!!!

Hi,

We’re making changes to our holiday rentals platform. We will no longer contract directly with homeowners or enable bookings on the Tripadvisor or Holiday Lettings platform. Instead we'll lean into our existing hotels model by displaying rental properties brought to us by partners where customers can click off to complete their booking on third party sites. We have also decided to close our Flipkey and Niumba sites.

Unfortunately, this means we have to end our contract with you. Soon we will disable the option for travellers to book stays with a check-out date beyond 31st October, 2024. After 30th September 2024, we will remove functionality that allows the direct booking of your property across any of the Tripadvisor Group brands including Holiday Lettings, Flipkey, and Niumba.

You will be able to access the Owners Centre until 30th November 2024. If you have any questions, please check out this FAQ page.

Thank you for your partnership.

Best wishes

The Tripadvisor Rentals Support

ArtDecoHouseUK

We own an Art Deco holiday property that sleeps 16 on the Isle of Wight and we did take the occasional booking through TripAdvisor. It never was a very successful platform for us, and in a year we probably would get no more than 2 bookings through them. It was also a very small percentage of the business of TripaAdvisor. I have read before that it was around 3% of their business. I have seen on some American forums that it was losing money for them as well. They have decided to pull the plug on the business and have notified both owners and renters and are actually returning deposits that were made. If you have had you booking cancelled, you need to find the property on a different platform, and I would suggest try to book it directly with the owner. So google them and send a direct email.

If you email through the TripAdvisor site, please be aware that the site strips out numbers, that includes any prices you put in the email and your phone number, so you need to find a direct email instead. As usual, be careful with scams when you book directly. We insist people pay via credit card when they book with us anyway. Most holiday properties can take credit card bookings via STRIPE or SUMUP. Dont send your card details by email.

I hope that helps.

GazzaF

We have been contacted by all future renters post 1-11-24 to advise that they have received their full deposits              ( and or ) full balances including the booking fees they pay to the booking sites, 
I eventually got to speak to Holiday lettings UK and advised that they were damaging my business as the renters want to book directly and they have lifted the bar on the sharing of numbers and emails.
I have managed to save all my bookings and invoiced directly via PayPal , which I believe gives some buyer protection and then they paid via Credit cars so they have another bit of peace of mind.
Owners will lose a bit in PP fees but its worth the small loss in the long run as if you keep your actual prices about the same then the renters make a saving by not paying TA's exorbitant booking fees - Just Balance it out