Refund dispute with Booking.com

SerenityBlue71

Hi all,

Really hoping you guys can help as I'm at a loss what to do.

Recently went on a week break to York. One of our party is a below knee amputee and wheelchair bound, therefore we need an accessible property. 

I found what appears to be an accessible ground floor property for us to stay in. On arrival it turned out that the "accessible ground floor property " had seven steep steps up to the front door!

I contacted the owner and explained the situation and he agreed that the property wasn't suitable and the description was misleading, we agreed that he would therefore refund me. We found a hotel for that night (luckily) and I put in a refund request to Booking.com asking for a fee waiver.

That's where everything went wrong, Booking.com Sent a message the following day saying they'd asked the owner to wave the fee and they'd refused, there explanation for this was that they could only refund me if someone else stayed there for the week we had booked??

Spoke to the owner and he said it wasn't him but because I'd cancelled booking thru Booking.com there cancellation policy wouldn't let him refund me because he didn't have access to the money, huh??

Messaged Booking.com and they said it was the owner that had refused refund when they'd asked for fee waiver, and if I filled in a dispute resolution form (which they sent to me) they would escalate with owner and would get back to me within the week. That was a month ago, Booking.com don't answer any of my emails and the owner is no longer answering calls or texts.

So what do I do now?

 Thanks in advance

Hoenir

Await the outcome of the discussion between the owner and Booking.Com. 

Did you make any enquiries regarding accessibility prior to making the booking? 

I'd suggest that the owner will see no need to make a refund if you didn't.  

SerenityBlue71

I did make sure that the property said it was accessible.