The two most common ways of deciding on a date are: (i) The date pretty much decides itself if it is a special occasion or your friends and family have a particular period booked off from work. (ii) If you want a particular cottage (or cottages) in a given area, you can start with available dates at that cottage and narrow it down. Choosing the date can be made easier by giving a group of people a choice of two or three dates which you know are available at the holiday cottage(s) you have initially contacted. By narrowing the dates down to two or three you are giving everyone a choice while avoiding 12 different preferred dates being given you when you ask for everyone's collective opinion!

Get in touch with the booking contact as soon as you have decided on your preferred date. This seems like an obvious move, but sometimes there are several enquiries for a particular cottage for any given date. These enquiries can sometimes run into double figures, so swift communication is the best way forward to ensuring you get what you want. If you have already booked your holiday cottage and something comes up which can't be helped - as things sometimes do - and you need to change your booking date, the best way forward again is to get in touch asap with your booking contact. As long as you are well in advance and give the owner or booking contact plenty of time to fill the period you are now effectively vacating, you will probably be okay to transfer your initial deposit and any payment from your existing booking to your new one.