A group of lifelong friends, 5 of us, go to the Ponca area every year to enjoy recreation in that area. We usually book at least 5 months in advance (which we did for this stay) and I always message the host the day we book to let them know about our group and our excitement to stay in their home (which the host of this place immediately responded with their excitement to host us).
Fast forward to the day of our check in (after payment for property had already cleared well in advance) and our group, from Dallas, were about an hour away from the property when we realized we did not have a door code. I messaged the host and rec’d a phone call saying that someone was already in the property from an another agency booking.
Seeing that it was the eclipse weekend, everything in that area was booked and the host only provided little effort to try and find us a new place to stay and eventually just refunded our money without giving me a heads up that they were giving up finding us a new place.
My issue is that I’m pretty sure we were the first ones to book that property, and even if we weren’t, the first day we booked back in beginning of December they should’ve replied to my initial message letting me know that the place was already booked, but they did not. Then a month before our stay when the second pmt was processed, instead of a confirmation of our stay the host should’ve again reached out to let us know the place was double booked.
Unfortunately none of that happened.