So frustrated/angry with TA/holiday Lettings

[julesb]

I just need to let off steam - having asked for help because I could find no way of contacting HL/TA, and received it from fellow LMH users (thanks). I sent off the following email to TA/HL. It bounced straight back saying there was no one available to help me and that I should look at the help pages on the site - really useful!

This is the email I sent ......

Please can you help me to understand why I was sent the following email?

Hello Julie, It’s against our terms of use to send guests an email address, web address, phone number, mention of a competitor, bank account or credit card details before the booking is confirmed. We emailed you the first time you sent a message to a guest that we had to block. This has happened again with your recent message to Sandrine. Unfortunately, if this happens for a third time we’ll have to take your listing offline. Please re-send your message, without any contact details or payment instructions.

This is the message I tried to send to Sandrine

Bonsoir Sandrine Je juste reviens de mon travaille. Alors, les dates été bloc par le site 'Owners direct' a cause de la confusion entre les deux même demandes. Si vous voulez encore loué la maison, essayez vous une autre fois parce que je pense que maintenant je les pose disponible. Par contre le jacuzzi n'est pas disponible c'est trop cher de remplir et chauffe juste pour 2 nuits ça va me coûte plus que le prix de la location! Cordialment Julie


'Good evening Sandrine I have just come back from my work. So the dates were blocked by the site 'Owners direct' because of the confusion between the same two requests. If you still want to rent the house, try another time because I think I now have them available. On the other hand the jacuzzi is not available it is too expensive to fill and heats just for 2 nights it will cost me more than the price of the rental!' Cordially Julie

It was in response to the message I received from Sandrine below

Bonsoir Bon je viens de comprendre. Je suis vraiment désolée mais en fait j avais fait 2 réservations sur votre logement. Donc la première c est annulé et je n arrive toujours pas à payé la seconde!!! Je vais retenter!


'Good evening I just understand. I am really sorry but actually made 2 reservations on your accommodation. So the first c is canceled and I still can not pay the second !!! I'll try again!'

Please can you explain to me how in any way I have said anything that would cause you to block my email. I have been a customer with Holiday Lettings for 12 years and I am very offended by this email.

I would welcome a speedy explanation to this situation
With regards
Julie Butters

Given that TA/HL leave me no way of contacting them or asking them to explain - can anyone here throw light on what I did wrong?

[Gettingthere]

Looks to me like an automated bot (ie not a real person) from Trip Advisor saw that you included the words "Owners Direct" and assumed that meant you were re-directing your customer there rather than taking the booking through TA.

This is the problem with these big competitive sites; they take larger and larger percentages for which they do less and less. If they'd simply had a real person check your email (goodness knows they have enough of our money to pay them!) then they would have seen how innocuous the mention of OD was.

The sooner we can dump the likes of HA/TA/OD/HL the better!

[julesb]

Newtoit - thank you - I am so stupid, of course I didn't even notice, I wrote Owners direct when I meant HL (I belong to both sites) at least I understand now why the message was sent. If they didn't make their request forms so difficult in the first place - which is why my guest sent 2 requests by mistake - then I wouldn't have been typing at 12pm and made the silly mistake in the first place.
Now I need to continue to try to find a way to actually write or speak to someone so that I can explain my error.
I absolutely hate that I can't get to contact anyone.

[julesb]

Now - because the guests accidently sent in two requests and I could only process one of them - they have 'bot' emailed me to say that my response rate is down to 50% and my acceptance rate is down to 50% - so I've moved down in the rankings - aggggh and I still can't get to talk to anyone. Oh how I wish I could afford to tell TA/HL where to stuff their over priced lettings site. At least with OD you can actually get to speak to someone!

[apexblue]

The best way to communicate with HL is by FB.

[Sam V]

And remember I only said 'advertise elsewhere' here on LMH in a TA thread to get my TA listing permanently removed!

[julesb]

Hurray - I finally got through and spoke to someone. Didin't help that much as the system doesn't allow the 'threat to be delisted' to be taken off the system - you have to be delisted and then phone to ask to be re-instated! That's if you can find their phone number which I am told doesn't appear anywhere on their website - you have to type customer support Holiday lettings or trip advisor into google and then you might get the number! Great customer service if you ask me!

[Essar]

Hurray - I finally got through and spoke to someone. Didin't help that much as the system doesn't allow the 'threat to be delisted' to be taken off the system - you have to be delisted and then phone to ask to be re-instated! That's if you can find their phone number which I am told doesn't appear anywhere on their website - you have to type customer support Holiday lettings or trip advisor into google and then you might get the number! Great customer service if you ask me!

Go onto the HL fb page - enter a new post starting with your account and property number - then really rant on about the problem. They'll be on the phone to you before any other owners reply to the post with similar tales of woe. Don't forget; account and property number so they can find you and call you.

[russellt]

No guest contact details, threats to de-list, no human contact, name-free listings, rising fees, etc, etc.

Has anyone else formed the view that, in the pursuit of profit, the OTAs are slowly tying themselves in knots?