Affinity Villas Reviews 744

We stayed for one week at Casa Margarida.  The villa was spotless and location superb, just could not fault it.  We also have a property bond and we are always spoilt with that, so we know and appreciate quality.  Lovely pool and lovely homely villa and would like to revisit, next time for longer.  If you like to relax on holiday, then this is the perfect villa for you.  A stones throw away to the most beautiful beaches in the Algarve and not too far and easy drives to  places of interest further inland

we loved the villa in particular the privacy it gave us and what a fabulous position too. Great walks and close by a beautiful beach. The welcome pack is the best we’ve had.
I would and probably will return.

I have used Affinity Villas for the last 6 years. I originally booked a villa for June. It became apparrent with Covid 19 that the holiday would be tricky. If flights were going ahead and the villa available then despite the pendemic if I chose not to go I would lose the cost of the flight and Affinity Villas T&C's would apply. That is a reduction of refund dependant upon the proximity of the cancellation to the holiday. As soon as the flights were cancelled I cancelled with Affinity Villas and claimed on my insurance. Affinity villas did not drag there feet and refunded extremely quickly unlike the insurance company who only had to redund 50% of the cost of the holiday and the airline for their cancelled flight. ( 4 months delay ). I had another booking for Sept. The FCO advised against travel. As we were insured we travelled and I am pleased we did. The risk was really low. A plane with 20 people, a private transfer and superb villa to myself. I have reserved for next year and given the stories of other companies I was impressed by AV service who even contacted us before we departed the UK. So my advice is just make sure you are insured and you wont lose out.

Donna was exceptionally helpful. The villa was wonderful, and the welcome basket a lovely surprise.

My family, like many others were unable to use their villa booking due to flights being cancelled. When it became apparent that we could not use the booking we cancelled, giving as much notice as possible.
To be told that we can't have a refund as 'the villa is there for you to use' is outrageous.
I have complained to the CMA about the unfair practices at Affinity Villas. To be told repeatedly that they are acting within their terms and conditions is just not helpful. We, like others, have just been told to claim off our insurance.
We tried to rebook or amend our booking for next year but were told it wasn't possible, even though villas for 2021 are on their website. Other villa companies have seen fit to refund their customers, even if it goes against their published terms and conditions. We have used Affinity before but this will be the last time. If they don't want to look after their customers, their customers will go elsewhere.
29/07/20 Review edited after reply.
FCO advice is NOT to travel to Portugal. Are Affinity Villas suggesting I go against FCO advice and travel to Portugal? I would then be invalidating my travel insurance.

I wrote on my last review of 8 July,

"We will never use this company again and judging by the extremely defensive tone of their responses to a significant number of similar complaints, I am not expecting a helpful or even reasonable response to this feedback!"

Well, I was not disappointed! Your responses are so defensive, blaming everybody or everything else and accepting absolutely no responsibility yourself. For example, in your response, you stated that your representative did ask us to consult our insurance company, but we were totally uninterested in following this route etc. This statement is completely and utterly untrue. We spent over a hour on the phone that very morning with our insurance company trying to explore all avenues and so I have no idea why you have written this completely incorrect statement? You also state that we took an aggressive stance during the telephone call. This is also totally incorrect. In fact, I stated to your representative that I understood that it is not her fault personally and that we are not taking it out on her. It appears to me that you have taken a conscious decision to interpret our 'upset' and 'frustration' as aggression, in another attempt to shift the blame for your totally inflexible, poor and 'legalistic' approach to customer service.

It beggars belief that you think that your rigid and unhelpful approach will make your business a success, when many of your competitors are doing their best to be helpful and flexible. And finally, I would suggest that your extremely defensive "and let's shift the blame" responses to this type of feedback is just helping to further damage your business reputation. I will never use this company again and unless you start to really listen to the feedback, I suspect that your days will be numbered.

This week, were it not for Covid-19, I would be in a villa rented from Affinity Villas. To rub salt into my wounds, I learned today, after viewing their website that it has been rented out to somebody else.
I have been reading some of the shocking reviews left by angry clients and felt sorry for those who terminated their booking before concluding the full rental contract. I have been lucky as I will not be left out-of-pocket for long, thanks to having been insured. I have claimed for over £1000 from my insurer. That £1000 is now with Affinity Villas and, as far as I can see, is profit which is on top of the money they will make this week, having managed to find another client to fill up our space. A refund from AV, which I could pass to my insurer, would be a nice gesture under the circumstances; however, with reference to AV comments to reviews I see they like to do everything as per contracts and conditions.

My main complaint lies with the Conditions. Covid-19 falls under the term of Force Majeure. This is what AV’s own conditions say:
“We reserve the right in any circumstances to cancel your holiday. However, in no case will we cancel your holiday less than 8 weeks before the departure date except for reasons of force majeure or failure on your part to pay the final balance.”
"The meaning of 'force majeure' include...natural or nuclear disaster, adverse weather conditions, fire or flood, terrorist activity or threatened terrorist activity, closure of ports and airports and car hire depots, unforeseen local building works or road works, actions of national or local governments or any similar circumstances beyond our control."

I thought that surely since I could not get to Portugal, I would qualify for a refund. Not so according to an email reply to my query from Grant Clow, Director of AV:
"You are booking accommodation only and we have not accepted any responsibility for your travel arrangements or indeed exit from or entry into the UK or any other country. Any inability to travel on your part for whatever reason (and whether or not related to coronavirus) does not mean that we are unable to provide the accommodation or are obliged to terminate your booking and refund the payments you have made to us. It is in order to protect yourself from situations outside your control such as this one that you are required to have travel insurance.
Having taken our own legal advice, the Force Majeure element is not applicable in your case. As previously said, we have not taken any responsibility for your travel arrangements to the villa and we are only providing the accommodation only element. The Force Majeure is in place for if we have made travel arrangements on your behalf and in this case we have not, therefore we cannot be held responsible for this. The wording has to remain to cover the spectrum of bookings we make; we cannot change conditions for every scenario, and this is a generic clause.
The Force Majeure section on our website, section 5, Alterations by us . We are not making any changes or cancelling your booking as we are able to provide the accommodation offered, so no refund would be applicable under Force Majeure."

There is no option for AV to take care of my travel arrangements as in booking my flights, so why would it be in their Conditions? Conditions should be specific and a “generic clause” leaves a lot open to interpretation.
I could see no point in pursuing this without some assistance, and before I contacted AV I ran my complaint by Trading Standards, where it came as no surprise to find I had a point with the definitions of AV’s Conditions. I have been offered assistance with this and am compiling the details I need to forward to them when requested.
I am a reasonable person and I seek no quarrel with anyone. A gesture to all of AV’s customers would, in my view, make good business sense. Refund all the deposits, refund when re-bookings are made etc. and you would be sure to see me booking for next year.

Since my holiday was cancelled I have received instant refunds from two hotels, my flight and my car hire company. Covid-19 wasn’t their fault either, AV, but they had the good business sense to do the right thing. Guess which businesses I will be using next time I travel?

So my warning to prospective clients of AV out there is to be wary of conditions which the company has no intention of adhering to.

Just let’s be clear insurance companies are NOT paying out as FCO guidance is not to travel we lost our full holiday cost and cannot reclaim

Affinity Villas have always been an excellent company with the team going the extra mile to make our holidays perfect. Terms and conditions are very clear from both Affinity Villas and the insurance companies who will pay out all monies paid upon cancellation on FCO advice

I have used this company many times and have never had a problem.Fantastic villas i have read many poor reviews due to covid problems and notice most have cancelled early so i dont know why they blame this holiday firm.

if a zero star rating was an option i would have chosen it! As with other customers of Affinity Villas i feel compounded to leave this review, Paid a deposit of £2293 in October to rent a villa for 2 weeks in July, the balance of £5850 was due in May. Lost the deposit as we had to cancel because of FCO advice not to travel. We were told that if we did cancel we had an option to use the deposit to re book if the villa was still available if the travel restrictions were to be lifted (which i thought might help). However received another phone call on the day we had to pay the balance to say that if we wanted to stay at the villa the owner had now decided they wanted the second week of our 'booking' for themselves so we would not be able to use it for the original two weeks booked. which rendered the offer of re - use worthless. I would hope affinity villas has passed on the deposit they kept, the villa owner now has my deposit money for both weeks, the villa is still advertised as being free on the first week of our original booking so they are making double bubble if anyone else rents it, plus i have contributed to the holiday fund of the owners staying on the second week.
My car hire was refunded in full, the flights were re- arranged by jet2 without a hitch.
Affinity Villas should be ashamed of themselves, surely the villa owners understood the situation, most of the villas advertised through Affinity are also offered through booking websites which gave a full refund to people booked through them, but not affinity villas, look for yourselves on the web.
also notice the trustpilot link has disappeared from Affinity Villas Website.

We booked a villa with Affinity villas to Portugal for July 2020 in January. We paid the full amount in May in hope that the FCO advice would change (note
that if we didn’t pay in full we would have lost our deposit and would be unable to claim against insurance). Now with no air bridge to Portugal we are unable to travel as our insurance would be invalid. Affinity, unlike nearly every other villa company I’ve looked at, were unwilling to change the date, refund or offer a voucher. We’ve had full refunds from Air bnb for our other stay in Portugal. I would never book with this company again due to their inflexibility and would look to those companies that have gone above and beyond for their customers during the pandemic for future custom.

DO NOT BOOK WITH THIS COMPANY

We have booked villas with this company for years now and I am absolutely disgusted at their dealing of the COVID 19 Pandemic.

We live in Scotland and a member of the family is shielding. At this time we are not permitted to travel to Portugal yet Affinity Villas have total disregard of this.

They have today cancelled our booking and kept our £900 deposit as the full amount was due to be paid and we were not prepared to take the risk of paying this and still not being able to travel. There is no refund being given and no chance of carrying our deposit over to next year. This means that if our Villa is rebooked at the same cost then the owner/affinity villas will have £900 extra on that booking. How can that possibly be fair. The customer, through no fault of their own, loses out completely. It’s a total disgrace and Affinity Villas should be ashamed of themselves.

We will not be booking with this company again and are in the process of taking advice on whether or not this is allowed to happen.

SHAME ON YOU AFFINITY VILLAS.

Well spoken thieves.
The person on the phone DID indeed tell me that I would be fined if my balance fell behind.
Also, It seems Portugal is NOT open for business as you are happily telling disappointed customers in your replies below. We may have cancelled on the 30th March but our flights were cancelled both ways in early June by the airline anyway.
A good business is NOT build on shifting the blame onto your customers, you have kept most of your customers deposits to cover your own backs and your reply here makes me cringe.
Do not bother giving out your well rehearsed excuses and saccharine well wishes whilst you bank our money.

Affinity Villas - A company that work with such outdated booking rules should not be in the market place! We just lost our initial deposit of 1,000 £ since we dont dare to keep our September rental due to the unique situation we're all in. Affinity Villas keep referring to insurance policies but there are no insurance companies that cover the ongoing pandemic! I spoke with both Mastercard and Amex about their coverage of the rental if I pay with any of their cards but they both were very clear about that they will not cover any losses due to the ongoing pandemic. We now will stay at Hilton and Marriott alternatives instead since you can cancel with 24 hour notice. The same applies to all the Airbnb options out there - those are much better and relevant alternatives than this poor company. STAY AWAY!! Companies like Affinity Villa should implement modern, fair and relevant booking rules, that is not the current situation. There are plenty of good and consumer friendly alternatives out there !

We had a similarly poor experience with Affinity as others. Deposit of £1,276.80 lost as, in their view, we had “cancelled” our trip starting 2/7/2020 by not paying the balance of over £4,200 in the midst of lockdown. Their communications, clearly carefully written by a lawyer, aim to shift responsibility to customer’s travel insurance and even blame their own villas owners for their lack of flexibility. In difficult times customers see the true measure of an organisation and sadly Affinity have made no effort to do anything other than protect themselves. In the current climate this is not a sustainable position.

Do not book with this company, absolutely zero flexibility. I had a villa booked for 13th June and when the final balance was due mid April, I phoned the company and was told they would not allow me to defer full payment and if I didn't pay, the villa booking would be cancelled, thus losing my deposit. I asked if my £500 deposit could be held until next year and used for a future booking, they said an emphatic NO. Use another company, there are other UK based Villa Rental companies who have been far more flexible. I will never book with this company again. We are all suffering with the effects of this pandemic!!

We have been trying to reason with this company for a couple of months since lockdown. Prior to our substantial balance being due of £8k on top of an already £4k deposit for a holiday with family, including elderly relatives. We were told if we didn't pay the balance we broke the T&C's. Our insurance company advised us not to pay the balance, as we wouldn't be covered as Covid was now a known issue, which it was not when we booked.
So we were well and truely stuck. We tried to reason, to take alternative dates, vouchers or rebook for next year, We are told bluntly we have broke T&C's of contract and to contact our own insurance. We have asked them to work reasonable with customers and villa owners, to no avail.
They state they don't have contracts with Villa owners for 2021 so cannot rebook, however they are selling villas for next year!
We have had other holidays including Villas booked with reputable companies, who have offered, vouchers, rebook and even refunds.
Affinity villas, have negotiation, whatsoever, they could seek refunds for our deposits and in turn from the villa owners, who i doubt are yet to receive these funds - Who has our cash exactly?
Short term view as us and our family will never rebook with this company and it looks like others feel the same.
Will report to the CMA, Martin lewis, they have even blocked me from sharing on social media.
Good luck with your PR going forward.
Appalling customer service.
Shame on you, when other companies are pulling togther in true spirit and trying their best.