Wales Cottages Arvostelua 3

On the 9th Jan we booked a cottage for the weekend, we intended to zip wire and walk in the area. ( A 50th Birthday present )
Unfortunately one of our group of three found a lump in her breast and it was confirmed as breast cancer. A mastectomy was booked for the week before our intended stay it became apparent we would need to change our plans. The cottage company refuse to refund or to move the booking to next year. It's unbelievable. We struggled to find this cottage the area is that busy during the period we booked so I have no doubt they will not have an empty property so they have doubled their money on the back of someone's cancer diagnosis - appalling ! Thankfully we have travel insurance.

In December we booked a cottage for late May. One week before the holiday we received a letter with directions to the cottage and a phone number for the key holder so we could make arrangements to pick up the key. On ringing the key holder we were told they lived there, the cottage was not available, they had had no contact with the rental company for two years and we should contact the rental company. To be honest their story was a bit fishy. It took 30 minutes on hold to get through to Wales cottages only to be told "I only take bookings, someone will call you". 5 hours later we got a call, an apology and an offer of alternative accommodation. We declined that because we couldn't find anything decent available at short notice and our trust in Wales Cottages was destroyed. To their credit our money was refunded in 48 hours (phew!) but how about some token of apology? Now I'm stuck at home when I should be on holiday. At least the weather's bad.

I booked a ground floor apartment with Wales Cottages. We have a 6 month old baby who has a lot of luggage, elderly parents and a lame dog in our party so the ground floor part was pretty essential to our stay. The apartment was just a 2 minute walk to the sea front with a small garden area.
We were due to arrive Monday but received a call from the landlord on Sunday at 6pm, saying can we come Tuesday as the people staying there at the moment would not be leaving in time for us to arrive. To say we were shocked was an understatement, we had been looking forward to being together and to be told this 12 hours before leaving was very disappointing. Nevertheless we agreed we would arrive on Tuesday and contacted Wales Cottages, who actually knew nothing of this, confirmed we would get a refund of the Monday nights stay and that our apartment would definitely be available on Tuesday. I wish at this point we had just got our money back because when we arrived on Tuesday we still couldn’t book into the apartment we had paid for.
The landlord said he had another apartment - one at the top of a hill, in a block of flats, on the 3rd floor, with limited parking. Endless trudging up and down in a small lift with all our stuff was exhausting all to stay in a place which was filthy. You have to take your shoes off with Covid rules, our feet were black from the dirty carpets. There was clumps of hair and dust on the towels. Many hairs in the linen on the bed and in the bathrooms. The oven tray was filthy with someone else’s food still stuck to the bottom of it, the top part wrapped in foil so least that was covered up. the oven shelves were not level and dangerous, a toaster that popped up every second, a dishwasher that wouldn’t work properly. The kitchen was totally frustrating and not being able to eat out it working was essential to our stay. There was an issue with the hot water but the landlord never responded and Wales cottages was closed.
I called Wales Cottages on the day after we arrived, they were going to return my call with their progress but that never happened. On the Friday I called again and was told my issue would be logged this time. I was called back and told they needed to contact the landlord. I have been home for 2 weeks now, not heard anything from them - I have called them each week but there appears to be nothing happening. On my last call yesterday I insisted that it got raised to management and I wanted to be called back, fortunately I did receive a call from the complaints team saying they had just heard about this! However not much else has changed as they still need to talk to the landlord!
I did say that I paid Wales cottages and they should refund me but they pointed out in the small print of the terms and conditions that my booking is a contract with the landlord and the refund has to come from him. So it must say it’s ok to book me into somewhere else, totally inappropriate to our requirements. The cottage was Llys y Barnwr in Aberystwyth - can’t tell you if it’s nice or not but the landlord doesn’t care about your holiday... he will just shove you wherever he can and keep your money. I wish we had just stayed at home! it was not a holiday, not restful and relaxing and it is still ongoing - a tiring battle as a 3rd party! A Very expensive dirty flat.