My partner Viv lives in Bedford and I live in Swansea. Viv recently lost her much loved Dad and having been a carer for both her parents for the past 8 years is struggling at the moment. She loves Wales and after much research booked a lovely peaceful cottage called Bwythn Berwig in Llanrhidian on the Gower Peninsular for a well needed break for peace and reflection in a lovely tranquil place. Bedford to Llanrhidian M1, M25, M4 is 230 miles each way. So by the time I get back to Swansea 920 miles in total ! I drove to Bedford on Thursday and we drove down to the cottage yesterday (Friday). We had official confirmation of AirB&B plus an official booking reference number and the £640 for the week’s stay was taken from Viv’s bank account on Friday morning by AirB&B. We arrived at the cottage at 4.20pm on Friday 16th June. No key safe, no one to greet us ! We phoned Cottages.com who we believe own the property and at first they tried to say we hadn’t completed the booking ! We gave them all the confirmation information and they then changed their story and said the ‘owners’ had cancelled in the afternoon, AFTER the money had been from Viv’s bank account ! We were stranded stuck in a lay-by we eventually got a contact number for AirB&B they contacted the ‘owners’ who said they had cancelled the booking ! Hoping they would find an alternative they came up with 3 inferior and more expensive properties not in the area and said we would have to pay upfront for an alternative property but a ‘refund (of Viv’s money) would take 15 working days’ ! Why ? They took from her account instantly. We spent 3 more hours in the car in a lay-by trying to find an alternative but being holiday season and very, very last minute everything was way over £1,000 for the week and not on the Gower Peninsular where we really wanted to stay ! The thing is they cancelled this booking they had both our phone numbers email addresses and no one had the decency to even inform us ! It got to 9pm before we gave up and headed back to Bedford ! The M4 to M25 junction was closed and we eventually got back to Bedford at 2am this (Saturday) morning ! To say it was a stressful day is an understatement ! Further research by us showed that the cottage wasn’t just a holiday let it’s also up for sale, so we can only assume the owners have either had an offer or someone has booked a viewing and they cancelled us but didn’t have the decency to even let us know ! You can’t have a house on the market and as a holiday let surely it’s got to be one or the other ! It’s not so bad if you cancel future holiday let bookings because it gives holiday makers time to book an alternative, but to cancel on the actual day of arrival after taking the money and not even inform us of the cancellation is absolutely disgusting ! I didn’t know things like this could happen I thought AirB&B would have a decent customer service and look after it’s customer’s not leave them stranded when we had done everything by the book ! Dixie & Viv :0(