‘A hotel cancelled our booking when Taylor Swift announced her gigs’
✉ In May we booked a hotel, the Palmerston in Toronto, for November through Booking.com for a trip so that we could go to a Taylor Swift concert. In early August the hotel emailed to say the booking was no longer available and would be cancelled because the hotel was overbooked. Booking.com then told us it had found us a similar place to stay, but it was ten miles away and unavailable on our dates. I then booked the next cheapest place I could find in the same area and let Booking.com know I thought it or the hotel should assist with the extra cost. Booking.com told me it could give us a maximum of £21. I have finally received a refund for the original booking, but Booking.com’s guidance clearly states that in the case of overbooking, it’s the hotel’s responsibility to find an alternative and cover any extra costs. I’m owed about £300 and am sure the hotel bumped us to resell the room for more when it realised Swift was in town. That doesn’t seem legal. Can you help?
Beth Steiner
Annoyingly, hotels pull this stunt all the time and there’s little you can do; many online reviews for the Palmerston suggest cancellations due to overbooking are a frequent problem. Fortunately, Booking.com has now apologised for the inconvenience and the delay in getting a refund, and confirmed you won’t be left out of pocket. A spokesperson said: “While properties that list with Booking.com are entirely in control of their availability, in rare cases a property may have to cancel or amend existing reservations, and Booking.com can step in to support the customer with an alternative accommodation. We do have strict guidelines and codes of conduct in place, and if we are made aware of any practices that break our terms and conditions then we can take action as needed. The customer has raised a dispute with their bank and we can confirm we are working closely alongside them to get this resolved.” The Palmerston was approached for comment.
Many hotels raised their room rates when Taylor Swift tour dates were announced
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✉ My husband and I went to Milan for a day during a longer tour to several gardens in Italy last year, but we only visited the cathedral and the shops. We’d love to return to visit the museums, see The Last Supper and, ideally, go to the opera. Can you suggest a travel company that can organise all this?
Gina Lane
Book a short break to Milan with the tour operator Citalia and it can bolt on a performance at Milan’s glorious La Scala, which is staging 14 operas in its 2024/25 season. Go in February and you could see Verdi’s Falstaff and take a Leonardo da Vinci guided walking tour that includes tickets to The Last Supper in the old refectory of the Santa Maria delle Grazie convent as well as the Atlantic Codex, the huge collection of Leonardo’s notes, drawings and sketches in the Pinacoteca Ambrosiana gallery. Four nights’ B&B at the Hotel Andreola, including flights and transfers, a walking tour and opera tickets, starts from £1,135pp (citalia.com).
• 14 of the best hotels in Milan for 2024
Tour operator Citalia runs breaks to Milan
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✉ We’re hoping to take a trip to Jordan to see Petra, then perhaps travel through Saudi Arabia, for my husband’s 80th birthday next year. We’re quite independent and not keen on organised tours. Can we do our own thing? We’re looking at travelling in May and have a reasonable budget. Any ideas?
Joan Shanks
This isn’t, of course, the best time to be planning a trip to the Middle East, but the UK Foreign Office is not advising against travel to most of Jordan or Saudi Arabia, and tour operators are reporting business as usual. However, I’d suggest that you book a bespoke private tour rather than going it alone because of the back-up you’ll have if anything goes wrong and the Foreign Office changes its advice since you should then get a refund under the Package Travel Regulations. I’d also recommend going in early April rather than May, when touring Saudi in 39C would be oppressive.
• Jordan travel guide: What to do, where to stay and why you’ll love it
Regent Holidays has a tempting 11-night Nabatean Treasures of Jordan and Saudi Arabia itinerary that could be adapted to suit you. It’s a desert overland journey highlighting the ancient Nabatean cities of Petra in Jordan and Hegra in Saudi Arabia, and follows one of the world’s oldest spice and incense trade routes from Arabia to the Mediterranean. In Jordan you’d also visit the religious site of Mount Nebo, the mosaic town of Madaba, the desert castle of Kerak and the vast desert landscape of Wadi Rum, with some beach time at the end in Aqaba on the Red Sea. Eleven nights’ B&B cost from £5,980pp including flights, guiding, excursions and some extra meals (regent-holidays.co.uk).
• Is it safe to travel to Jordan right now? Latest travel advice
It’s best to book a bespoke private tour to Petra rather than going it alone
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✉ My husband and I, plus our giant schnauzer, want to take a three-night break somewhere in the UK. We live on the Fylde coast in Lancashire and would be happy to travel for up to four hours. We have already visited the Lake District a lot. We’re outdoorsy and love to explore. Where can you suggest?
Pauline Eaton
A few metres from the Welsh border on the Shropshire side is the family-run and super dog-friendly Pen-y-Dyffryn hotel. This cosy 14-room former rectory is less than a mile from the Offa’s Dyke trail, with plenty of walks from the door as well as castles and attractions nearby (including Thomas Telford’s Pontcysyllte aqueduct). The market town of Oswestry is three miles away. Rooms in the hotel’s Coach House are big-dog-friendly and have their own patio. The hotel has taken 25 per cent off room rates in November and December, making three nights’ half-board in a master room in the Coach House from £780, including a cream tea (peny.co.uk).
• 25 of the best dog-friendly hotels in the UK
✉ My husband and I have just returned from a trip to North America, with an entry through Nome in Alaska, and an exit on the same day to Vancouver. We’re UK citizens and our Esta visa waivers worked fine. A week later, the US authorities emailed me to say my Esta was now unauthorised. We thought it must be a scam; it wasn’t, and we are at a loss to know what’s happened. My husband’s Esta is still valid. When we checked our I-94 US departure/arrival history, we noted a possible inconsistency on our trip last year. My husband is listed as having left Dallas in October, but there’s no note on my I-94 of me doing so. Could this be the reason? We’re in real danger of losing our Christmas trip, when we’d need to pass through Miami airport to come home after a Caribbean cruise. Any advice?
Margaret Baxter
It’s hard to know exactly what happened here, but one way to find out is to go to the US government Department of Homeland Security website (dhs.gov/dhs-trip) and file a “redress request” through the DHS Travel Redress Inquiry Program. Or you could contact US Customs and Border Protection through its information centre (help.cbp.gov). There’s no guarantee you’ll get a satisfactory answer from either of these, however, and if you don’t, the advice from the US Embassy is that you’ll have to apply for a B-2 tourist visa and attend an interview in London at the embassy (uk.usembassy.gov).
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