Last year we used Cottages.com and had no issues with our lodging, so we decided to book another lodging this year. Unfortunately we were left disappointed by our lodging, whilst it was not as advertised, the main issue was the lack of Wi-Fi. The advert for the lodge clearly advertised Wi-Fi, and we would not have booked the lodge if it did not have Wi-Fi. We contacted the owner about the Wi-Fi, who promptly ignored us, despite us messaging him back immediately after he had messaged us. He ignored us until 12pm the next day, where he stated he had never had any issues with the Wi-Fi before, though we looked on the reviews and this is clearly not the case. In reality, the Wi-Fi network he had given us simply did not exist, and there was no router inside the Lodge. We need access to Wi-Fi, and as stated, we would never have booked a lodging if it did not advertise Wi-Fi. So as there was no Wi-Fi, unfortunately we had to return home. I contacted cottages webchat who advised me on how to make a complaint, which is exactly what I did. I must add that in the next week that it took for Cottages to reply, the owner had not messaged us to advise the Wi-Fi was back up and running so we could return, this is important because according to the Cottages Complaints team, it is my fault that we didn’t give the owner enough time to resolve the issue. Which is a ridiculous statement, we could have happily returned, and even despite this, is it not the owner’s responsibility to ensure the facilities are in working order? The entirety of the response we received back from the Cottages Complaint team was embarrassing for yourselves to say the least, there was not an ounce of thought or care that went into helping me, it was clearly biased towards the Lodge owner. The advisor also pointed out that, despite allowing their owners to advertise Wi-Fi on their listing, they don’t guarantee the Wi-Fi. So essentially, Cottages has created a system where customers can’t complain about actual issues, because they just don’t guarantee it. Which is abysmal. This is false advertisement, it is misleading. But it gets better! After replying to the awful response, I received a follow up. In this email the Cottages Complaint team tells me that they enquired about the circumstances with the Lodge owner, but they haven’t received any response from him. So because of this they transferred a £20 voucher to me, and said now my complaint won’t be subject to further review because it is settled. So the first part here, I genuinely do not know how a complaints team can be attempting to resolve a complaint about a Lodge without speaking to the Lodge Owner. What this tells me is that the complaints team never had any intentions of actually resolving the issue, the outcome of the complaint had already been decided. Additionally, I do not know how Cottages can continue to side with the Lodge Owner, when he won’t even reply to yourselves! This Email was sent to me no more than 3 weeks after the stay, so Cottages didn’t even bother to chase the Owner for longer than 3 weeks. They just quickly attempted to sweep my complaint under the rug with a £20 voucher, which compared to the cost of my stay is insulting. The second part, is the assumption that the complaint is now closed because they offered me a £20 voucher. This is so insulting to your customer. The complaint should stay open until you have come to an agreement, to send your customer a voucher then throw the complaint in the bin is unbelievable. My last email from the team literally just told me to contact ABTA, because frankly the Team can’t even be bothered to chase the Owner for a response, so why bother putting an ounce of effort into actually resolving a complaint. They even had the courage to write that “despite their best efforts they hadn’t been able to settle my complaint”, which is frankly embarrassing. Have some humility and admit that you couldn’t care less. So the moral of the story here, is Cottages is great until you actually have to deal with Cottages, then you will speak to some of the worst customer relationship advisors I have ever come across, who have zero interest in resolving your issues.