Firlands Lodge

Hi everyone, get comfortable, because this Christmas story is a long one. We booked Firlands Lodge from 24/12/20 to 27/12/20 back in September. Things seemed to be improving, and travel to other shires in north east Scotland was allowed, so we thought we'd treat ourselves to Christmas in a lodge with the family. Then, a week before our trip, Aberdeenshire moved into tier 3. Our free cancellation period had ended the week before. Travelling to Morayshire, which was at level 1 then, was no longer allowed, so we cancelled through booking.com. That decision ended up ruining our Christmas. Booking.com told us the stay was now non-refundable because we'd passed the refund deadline, but said they would contact the property for us. The owners then said they could leave the booking open because people were still travelling. We couldn't believe it. Going from level 3 to level 1 was prohibited, and we weren't going to risk getting fined. They next offered £300 back on our £600 booking. No, we wanted a full refund since this wasn't our fault. Rebooking wouldn't work either, because we'd lose the chance to spend Christmas with our family. The final option was a full refund if Firlands got another booking for our dates, 24/12/20 to 27/12/20. It might sound as if they bent over backwards to help, but we've been sent around in circles from the start. They ignored umpteen calls from booking.com to sort this out and told us they didn't have our money. We'd packed and been ready to go, but COVID travel restrictions stopped us. Why shouldn't we get a full refund when it wasn't our fault? Now, after Christmas Day, we're all going into level 4, right in the middle of our dates. So much for their idea that we could travel up. We've filed an online complaint with the Competition and Markets Authority, which seems to have had a high success rate with cases like ours involving COVID and travel restrictions. We look forward to hearing from them. People like this need to be dealt with. We work hard for our money. You don't steal money. You earn it.