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Frequently asked questions -
FAQs |
When you book a cottage you deal directly with
cottages4you?
Cottages4you is a
member of the Holiday Cottages Group with its head office
in Spring Mill, Earby, Barnoldswick, Lancashire, BB94 0AA.
The Holiday Cottages Group
is the leading supplier of Holiday Rental Accommodation in
Britain and employs more than 250 staff at its head office plus
regional staff throughout the areas where the cottages and holiday
homes are located. It has been in business for more than 25
years and today offers more than 15,000 Holiday properties
throughout The UK, (England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland) France,
Italy, Portugal and Spain.
When you book a holiday property through this website you are
dealing directly with The Holiday Cottages Group - the secure pages
where you select and book your cottage ( including the payments page
if you book online) belong to The Holiday Cottages Group.
Cottages4you is part of the Holiday Cottages
Group, the largest holiday letting agency in Britain. With 30 years
experience and specialist expertise in providing cottage holidays to
hundreds of thousands of satisfied customers.
These Cottages are
privately owned and each cottage is handpicked, regularly inspected,
and must be maintained to documented high quality standards.
Having rented a number of cottages from Cottages4you and some from
others we were so impressed with the consistent quality and
presentation of the cottages from cottages4you that some years ago
we negotiated a partnership arrangement with the company and
re-structured our website to offer visitors the opportunity to book
cottages directly with Holiday Cottages Group through our website.
When you book a cottage through our website you are booking directly
with The Holiday Cottages Group at their prices using their secure
booking pages.
We have used our skills to build our two
websites that enable you to quickly find that special cottage in a
location to suit your requirements. We have also provided background
information plus slide shows of photographs that we have taken
across England - you can find this information on our main cottages
website:
http://www.explorethecountry.com.
We give you the tools to research and put
together your own Cottage Holiday online and are continuously
working with our two websites incorporating new properties and
information.
If you prefer to book by phone in the UK, identify the property
reference number of the cottage you wish to book then dial
Cottages4you on their UK phone number 0845 268 1458. You will be
speaking directly with one of the internet marketing people at the
Head Office of Cottages4you in Earby Lancashire.
You have two websites
explorethecountry.com and breaks2go.com - I am a bit confused...
Of the two websites
explorethecountry.com is the original website we developed a
few years ago specifically for marketing bookings of self catering holiday cottages in
the UK and Europe in partnership with the Holiday Cottages Group.
Subsequently we formed a partnership with the Superbreak group
and developed breaks2go.com to market Superbreak products;
namely Hotels, London Shows and City Breaks across the UK,
Europe and beyond, quality hotel accommodation, plus optional
add-ons theatre, concert, entertainment, rail travel, tours,
cruises and more.
With both websites performing beyond our original expectations we
discovered from research that websites hosted in Nelson, New Zealand
took seven times longer for visitors in the UK to open pages
compared to the same website hosted in the UK. So we have moved our
website breaks2go.com to the UK and added content and links to our
cottage website explorethecountry.com. Basic searches for cottages
can now be made on our breaks2go.com website and for additional
information plus our photographs taken across the UK visitors can go
to our website explorethecountry.com which is hosted in New Zealand.
Why can't I book a cottage
for a weekend when I am booking well in advance?
During public holidays and school holidays
there are limitations on how early you can book a short stay.
Bookings for short stays that
fall during a public holiday may only be made within 28 days of
the public holiday. Bookings for 7 or 14 days where the stay
dates include a public holiday may be made at any time.
Click here
for a list of public holiday dates in England, Wales and
Northern Island.
Also:
Short break bookings for peak times of
Cottage occupancy cannot be made until 28 days prior to the
Start Date of your stay. June, July, August, and early September
are classed as peak times. The schools go back at different
times depending on the area. That is why its such a long peak
time. 
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Start dates, Stay Lengths etc. including
conditions of hire are negotiated
with the owners - :
Each of the holiday properties represented by The
Cottage Holiday Group are privately owned. Certain conditions may be
agreed when negotiating to have a property listed by The Holiday
Cottages Group. Whether pets are allowed, maximum and minimum length
stays etc.
Generally bookings
may be made for a duration of 2, 3, 4, 7, or 14 days (some cottage
owners may choose not to offer the full range). Stays for 2, 3, and
4 nights are regarded as short stays. Stays of up to one month may
be available for some cottages please
phone cottages4you direct for
more information.
Most weekly
bookings run from Saturday to Saturday, unless the property
indicates otherwise. Where accepted, 2 night breaks start on a
Friday or Saturday, 3 night breaks on a Friday and 4 night midweek
breaks start on a Monday.
Customers do sometimes have difficulty
finding a cottage particularly during times
of heavy bookings when they have left it late.
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We specialise in helping customers
find cottages.
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If
you can't find that special UK holiday cottage in this
website in less than ten minutes
email us
and we will do our best to help?
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...
and that's a promise!
More>>
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How do I quickly find a cottage in proximity to a village?
With so many cottages it is a challenge to
enable visitors to our website to quickly find the cottage
in the location they are looking for.
If you draw a ring around any village in
England, Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland there is every chance that
we list a number of cottages within 25 miles of the village. The
challenge is to provide a quick and easy way for our customers to
display cottages in proximity to a location.
We have
developed hundreds of pages
listing most of the towns and villages throughout England,
Scotland, and Wales so that you can go directly to a town and display
cottages within a radius of 25 miles (as the crow flies) of that
town. You can then adjust the radius out to 50 miles or down to 10 miles
to narrow down the results. Cottages closest to the town are displayed
first.
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We provide five pages listing the towns and villages for each
county, one page taking you to a display of cottages sleeping 2
people when you click the name of the town or village, one page
set up for cottages sleeping 4 people, one for 6 people, one for
8 people and one for 10 people, a total of around 210 pages.
Start the search by clicking the thumbnail map to the right then
click a county, then select cottages sleeping 2, 4, 6, 8, or 12
people, then select the town or village and a display will open
listing all cottages sleeping the number you have chosen within
25 miles.
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With a stock of cottages this large
new cottages are being added frequently and some cottages removed from
time to time. For this reason you may find a cottage that was listed
previously may not now be available.
If you are having difficulty finding that
special cottage check out our free
help service
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How do I
change dates and other requirements when I have displayed a list of
cottages?
This website explorethecountry.com interfaces with
the Holiday Cottages Group website that contains listings of all
cottages and rental properties in their database. When you move to the
Holiday Cottages Group website (named chooseacottage.co.uk) the website
named chooseacottage.co.uk will open in a new instance of you browser if
you are using Internet Explorer or a new tab if you are using Mozilla
Firefox.
At the top of
each page displaying a range of properties you will find four drop down
lists as in the photo shot below. You can re-select any of these
to change your requirements. When you select another option the display
will refresh automatically. 
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How do I look for a
holiday property in France,
Italy, Portugal or Spain?
Select 'Cottage Search'
in the top menu of the HOME PAGE or look for links to the full
database of cottages elsewhere and you will open the
Holiday Cottages Group website named chooseacottage.co.uk with an
explorethecountry.com logo at the top of the page. This website will
open in a new instance of you web browser and is separate to
explorethecountry.com. Here is a photo shot of the part of the HOME PAGE where you make you selection for the search:
Quick Search:
This HOME PAGE photo shot
Quick Search above has been set up to bring back a
display of holiday properties sleeping 6 people in Champagne,
France.
These search options include
all cottages villas and apartments in the
database including properties in Ireland, Portugal, Italy,
France and Spain. This displays cottages without
any date filtering and may bring back up to 500 properties.
Open window showing the Quick Search facility as above
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Availability Search
(also Advanced Search -
click here to go straight to our Availability Search or Advanced
Search page )
This is a photo shot of the Availability Search set
up to bring back holiday properties in Champagne, France for six
people with 4 bedrooms for a stay of 7 nights starting 23 November
2008 having a swimming pool, pub nearby, and pets allowed. You can
also set the price range.
As with many results you
will find properties listed first will most closely meet your
requirements. The same window opens for the Advanced Search
Open window showing the Availability Search facility as above
Reference Search:
Each
property has a unique Property reference Number. If you wish to
book the cottage by phone you identify the cottage by quoting
the Property Reference number. The Reference Search
enables you to go directly to a cottage if you know its Property
reference Code and brings back
that property.
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Whilst 99% of our customers proceed straight through the
process of selecting their cottage and completing the
booking, occasionally someone is unsure of the steps
required to complete the booking. If you are unsure follow
the step by step procedure on this page or make use of our
free help service.
If you would like further assistance please call
Cottages4You direct using their UK phone number 0845 268 1458 from within the UK
Click here
for calling details from outside
the UK
or you can email us by
clicking on
this link
which will open an email addressed to us: |
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How do I
actually book a cottage?
1. Identify the cottage
Click on the button 'More
Details' in the list of cottages displayed when you use one of the
Search options above or if you have come directly to a cottage by
clicking a link on the website explorethecountry.com.
2. Click - 'Check price and availability'
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The next step is to see if the
cottage is available for the dates that suit you. Remember
that bookings for cottages are heavy throughout the year and
we recommend that if possible you book well in advance.
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3.
Confirm that the
dates you require are available
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Please Note the Start Day - this is the Start Day for
the Holiday Duration that you have selected.. A small
booking charge may be added when booking some cottages - if
a booking charge is to be added notice of the booking charge
will be displayed in this window.
This page
'Check Price and availability' is where you identify if the
cottage is available for the dates you require. Select the
Month/Year and the duration of your stay in the drop down
boxes and the display will change to show you which start
dates are available together with the price.
If a cottage is unavailable you will not see the green
coloured date as we see here for October 21. Where there are
no green coloured starting dates this means that the cottage
is booked out. Changing the Month and Holiday Duration may
display alternative dates that are
available..
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4.
Book
online or directly with cottages4you by phone:
Once you identify a date that suits you click on 'book this property'
and you go to the secure cottages4you page where you enter your credit card
details. You will receive immediate confirmation by email. Alternatively
you can phone Cottages4You directly using their UK phone
number 0845 268 1458 and you will get immediate support from their head
office in York, Yorkshire, England. You can complete your booking over the
phone. From New Zealand we would phone 0044 1282 846 763.
Once you complete your booking application you will
receive acknowledgement with a temporary internet reference number by
return email then once the Internet Team have processed your booking you
will receive a confirmed booking reference by email.
Their office is open (UK Hours) 9am to 9pm Sunday
to Friday, and 9am to 7pm Saturdays for UK cottage holidays and 9am to
7.30pm Monday to Friday, and 9am to 5.30pm Saturdays and 9am to 6pm
Sundays for overseas cottage holidays. You can check Office hours by
clicking the link at the bottom of the page on our Cottages website.
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