l'école au gite

We never stayed at the rental because the owners cancelled our booking three weeks before our trip. Everything here is about our dealings with them. We booked through FlipKey/TripAdvisor in April 2016 and paid a deposit, with the reservation confirmed. We were coming for the 100th anniversary of the battle of Vimy Ridge on April 9th, 2017, and booked early because we expected the area to fill up. We paid the remaining balance in March 2017, just under a month before leaving. A few days later, the owners emailed to say they had made a mistake and had two reservations for the same dates, so we couldn't stay. They said they didn't know how the double booking had happened. Their suggested replacement, their parents' apartment in Arras, was too small for our group. We panicked, since most places around Arras were already booked. This trip mattered a lot to my family: my great-grandfather fought and was wounded at Vimy Ridge, and we'd been planning it for a long time. They couldn't offer us a suitable solution. They were willing to let us use their own house, but some guests would have had to sleep on cots, with no discount. That wasn't what we had agreed to. Fortunately, we found another house nearby, though it cost nearly 600 euros more. We asked the owners to cover half the difference, 300 euros, but they didn't even reply. Instead, they told us cancelling would cost them 135 euros in TripAdvisor fees, as if that should make us feel bad. The problem came from their negligence, yet they seemed neither bothered nor to have considered that. How could it take almost a year to discover two bookings for the same dates? I assume they received two deposits, and apparently that part wasn't an issue. The cancellation was disappointing. Their complete lack of good faith and silence when we asked for some compensation was worse. Because of their mistake, we ended up paying nearly three times what the École au Gîte rental would have cost for a suitable house farther from where we wanted to be. If you rent this place, I'd suggest checking directly with the owners that it's actually available. It's listed on lots of websites, and I got the impression they couldn't keep track of them all. They never showed proof that someone else had booked before us, though we've chosen to give them the benefit of the doubt. If there's a double booking and you're the one who loses out, don't expect sympathy or compensation. They seemed more concerned about their own pockets than anything else.

Being close to Arras was handy, and the place was roomy, clean and comfortable. It also had everything we needed.