Booking.com & last minute cancellation.

Aylesbury_Duck

skymole said:

Aylesbury_Duck said:

Have you spoken to your insurer?  I'd have thought they'd be the first port of call for costs arising from the unavailability of the accommodation.  

Did you make your very specific location requirements known to booking.com before/when you booked?  You say they ignored the fact that there was nothing suitable in the area but if they didn't know of your very precise requirements before the problem arose, how did you expect them to deal with it?

Our insurer didn't cover us for a loss caused by third party cancellation. 

No I didn't make them aware of the specific requirements before booking - Why would I? I just booked. My point is that they rejected the claim saying we should have travelled to our destination in any case. (I would have arrived in the early hours of the morning) I had already established that there was absolutely no accommodation. So if we had caught the flights we would have had to abandon the holiday in any case. Booking.com would not magic up accommodation out of nowhere where none exists.

Because it was critical to your travel plans and you knew that no alternative existed should there be a problem.

The trouble with wanting to pin consequential losses on a party responsible for only one part of a booking is that you're asking them to accept an almost limitless and unknown level of liability.  Hotel room suddenly and unavoidably unavailable days before a Grand Prix weekend in Singapore?  Should the hotel be liable for your F1 weekend tickets costing several thousands of pounds plus your flights, on the basis that the whole city is fully booked on Grand Prix weeken old and therefore that alternative accommodation doesn't exist?  Or flights/travel from a nearby country in and out of Singapore on each of the three days, plus the new accommodation there?

This is why having the appropriate level of insurance is important.