Family spent £1,000 on holiday to the wrong Newport
A geographical mix-up has ended up costing one family £1,000.
Louise Turner, 37, thought she’d booked a cosy guestroom in the quaint town of Newport, on the Isle of Wight, for her family’s holiday.
But she’d actually paid for accommodation in the city of Newport, in South Wales.
Louise and her family popped in the postcode of their destination after a day of adventuring on the Isle of Wight, but had been shocked to discover the guesthouse was 130 miles away.
‘I totally freaked out,’ Louise said.
‘We called Booking.com who admitted they’d made an error in their listing by putting it in the wrong Newport area but they wouldn’t help us find somewhere new to stay.
‘It was late in the day, it was the middle of high season, we were just scrambling for somewhere to stay.
‘But we were on a tight budget and Booking.com kept saying they’d refund us but they didn’t do it.
‘We ended up borrowing money from my dad to stay in this horrible hotel which charged us £1,000 to stay for six nights.’
The hotel they ended up in was ‘disgustingly dirty’ she claimed, with rusty cutlery, cobwebs behind the couch and a horrible smell.
The mix-up was caused because the guesthouse in Newport, South Wales, was listed under the Isle of Wight section of the Booking.com website.
The family are now hoping for a refund for their stay, which took place last summer.
Louise, who lives in Norfolk with husband Jose and their two children, said the family did have a ‘nice holiday’ but the £1,000 extra spent was a ‘big rigmarole.’
The family had spent one week in a cottage and planned for a second week in a guesthouse as a change of scene.
They had spent the day exploring in between changing their accommodation.
It wasn’t until near 4pm, when Louise entered the guesthouse postcode in the sat nav, that they realised the mistake.
She added: ‘That’s money we don’t have and Booking.com aren’t giving us our money back.
‘They’re not even replying to me now. It’s so unfair.
‘We only borrowed the money from my dad because we thought we were getting a refund from Booking.com but they’ve never done anything.
‘We have never received a refund from either Booking.com or the guesthouse.
‘Both of them just started becoming more and more rude and then just stopped all contact.’
Booking.com have apologised for the mix-up but said it ‘would urge all customers to thoroughly check all details before confirming any reservation’.
The website has been changed to ensure the Newport, South Wales guesthouse does not appear in searches for Newport on the Isle of Wight.
A spokesperson for Booking.com said: ‘At Booking.com our overarching aim is always to facilitate a smooth and enjoyable travel experience for our customers.
‘We have looked into the reservation in question and have checked that all address details in the original listing were correct, including all of the information sent in the customers confirmation email, which confirmed the property details and location via a map.
‘Though we were sorry to hear of the customers disappointment, we would urge all customers to thoroughly check all details before confirming any reservation.’
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