Affinity Villas Reviews 744

Reply from Affinity Villas

Jun 11, 2020

Thank you for your review, we reserved your chosen accommodation, one of our most popular, in July 2019 when we advanced registered your dates until contracts and prices were agreed with the owner, you confirmed your booking on 15 November 2019 by paying a deposit of £3,387, not £4,000 as you state in your comment, this booking was for 5 families for 16 July 2020.

Your balance was due for payment on 21st of May 2020, we contacted you with plenty of time explaining that it was reasonable to assume your holiday would proceed and to remind you of the balance due date. Due to our contractual obligations we were unable to defer balance payments. Portugal had opened up from lockdown and businesses are now operating as normally as possible.

As with all our clients we recommended you contact your insurance companies, all clients are advised at the time of booking to take out travel insurance and this is part of our terms and conditions. Mrs Wenham stated that your insurance company advised you to cancel your holiday and that you were not covered as the pandemic was a known event. All of our clients that have taken out travel insurance at the time of booking have been covered as it was not a known event at the time of booking, unless the policy was taken out after the pandemic started. Many of our clients have settled their balances hoping to travel in the knowledge that they are covered.

You told us that there were 5 separate families travelling so this would be 5 separate insurance policies for each household, so it would be perfectly reasonable for each family to check their policies for advice. It would not be the case that one policy would cover 5 separate households. Insurance companies that are advising clients to cancel are settling claims for lost deposits, others are advising to pay balances in the knowledge that they are covered as many people wish to travel.

Mrs Wenham has stated that you no longer wish to travel, however no company or insurance company can cover you for disinclination to travel. And no holiday company will continue with your booking if you choose to break the terms of the contract by choosing not to pay your balance. All holiday companies would be taking a similar stance. It is very likely that your accommodation will go unsold, yet has been reserved by you for 6 months when it could have been let to someone who does wish to travel.

We accept that these are extraordinary times and whilst we would like to refund everyone who chooses not to travel it would make our business unsustainable.
It is perfectly reasonable to expect you to, and indeed you agreed to, obtain adequate travel insurance for all families in the party to cover unforeseen events when such large sums of money are involved. It is also reasonable for us 2 months ahead of your travel date in mid July to expect your holiday to proceed, with flights still due to operate, Portugal welcoming tourists and likely that travel restrictions maybe lifted in the coming weeks. We are sorry that you did not take out adequate insurance but we cannot be the insurers of last resort, and many of our customers are still looking forward to their holidays safe in the knowledge they are covered and we are taking new bookings for the same periods you were due to travel. You comment on other reviews, similar to your own circumstances, these are also from other clients who failed to take out insurance as agreed.

Reply from Affinity Villas

Jun 2, 2020

Thank you for your review, you called us on 25 March regarding your holiday for July 2020. At the time, the foreign office advice was against travel in the next 30 days until mid April. It was very reasonable to expect your future holiday would go ahead at that time, and your balance was not due until 7th of May, some 6 weeks later, so you had up until that point to decide if you wanted to pay your balance or not, or to wait to see if travel advice had changed in order to make an insurance claim. Unfortunately, you decided to cancel at that point which can only be seen as a disinclination to travel and forfeited your £371 deposit.

You did call us once more a month after you cancelled to complain further and this was after the foreign office extended the advice against all but essential travel with an indefinite date and your review is now left over two months since you decided to cancel.

Portugal is open for business and will be welcoming tourists for your scheduled departure date of 2nd of July. Unfortunately we can only act on information available at the time and it is not unreasonable to wait until nearer your departure date and your very early cancellation could only be seen as a disinclination to travel, this is something that we cannot cover nor any insurance company if you choose to cancel before you had to.

You mention ABTA bonded companies, we would also like to point out that no ABTA bonded company would refund your deposit if you choose to cancel this early so you would be in no different situation with any other holiday company. ABTA bonding is for package holidays and we only sell accommodation only and do not fall under package travel regulations. However all our holidays are fully protected by IPP in the event of financial failure, however we do stipulate that all clients should take out travel insurance for other unforeseen eventualities, this way we can still offer full financial failure insurance and keep our prices competitive.

Lastly we are saddened that you have stated that we were hostile and unhelpful and after reviewing your correspondence with us, your last email to us stated that with regret, due to the high levels of uncertainty surrounding the pandemic, that you have decided to cancel and that you hoped to look forward to booking something with us in the future.

Reply from Affinity Villas

Jun 2, 2020

Thank you for your review. We are sorry that you are disappointed that we cannot move your booking to 2021 but as Portugal is open for business and holiday villa rentals are going ahead it is reasonable to expect your holiday on 16th of July will be able to go ahead and that our contract with our owner has to be adhered to.

Whilst we do appreciate your regular custom we are caught in a difficult situation trying to be fair to both our clients and owners, you did say to us that you were happy to pay your balance of your holiday with your intention to travel, but only if we could offer you a discount on the price of the holiday, which of course we were unable to do.

You decided to cancel your holiday when it is reasonable for us to assume that it may go ahead which is of course your decision. Many clients have been settling their balances with the knowledge that should the foreign office advice about travel not be lifted by the time they are due to travel that they could claim on their insurance.

As much as we would like to, we are unable to be the insurers of last resort and continue our business by absorbing a years’ worth of substantial overheads allowing all our clients to move to a future year.

With regard to your comment about taking bookings for 2021, as a regular client you will know that these are provisional advance registrations where we take a fully refundable £250 deposit allowing many of our regular clients to provisionally secure their favoured villa for their preferred dates well in advance. Once we have agreed next year’s terms with the owners, usually around August time we are able to fully publish the prices and confirm bookings by collecting the remainder of the deposit or allow our clients to change their minds and have their advance registration fee refunded. We have been practicing this policy for 20 years very successfully, something you have been happy to do in the past.

Sadly, we are in unprecedented times and we are very sorry we are unable to offer you any more flexibility and should you change your mind we would be happy to reinstate your booking subject to availability.

Reply from Affinity Villas

May 20, 2020

Thank you for your review during this difficult time for everyone.

You called us on the 16 March to ask for our cancellation policy, this was before the government announced any advice against travel, and no one could have anticipated the future. You then emailed us to cancel a few days later which was some 3 months prior to your scheduled travel date of 18 June and over a month before your balance payment was actually due. At that point in time it was perfectly reasonable to not anticipate the subsequent outcome, which is still not certain for June with borders beginning to open at this point in time.

There was no urgency to make this decision on your part with the balance not being due until 5 weeks later and at the time of your cancellation you emailed us to say ‘If and when the situation changes and our flights are still in place we would be in touch at a future date to see what you would have available’ and that you hope to book again with us in the future.

Obviously the time in between you deciding to cancel and leaving your review 8 weeks later many things have changed however we could only act on the knowledge and facts at the time you made your decision. We are sorry your view has now changed and hope you and your family remain safe and well during this troubled time.

Re reply

This is factually incorrect, cancellation charges only apply after the balance is paid which was not due until 5 weeks after you cancelled. Up to that point it was loss of deposit, so you had a further 5 weeks to decide if you wanted to continue or not, but you decided to cancel at that point. Up until the balance is due it is loss of deposit, and as you cancelled when there was no information that would lead us to believe your holiday would not go ahead then our normal terms and conditions were applied which are standard through the holiday industry.

Reply from Affinity Villas

May 11, 2020

Thank you for your review, we are sorry that you had to cancel your booking 8 weeks prior to your planned departure date just as the time your balance was due for payment. We are very much hoping that in two months time there maybe some normality and that people are able to travel again, but of course we won’t know yet until the time gets closer. Most of our clients have contacted their insurance companies and some have been advised to pay their balance in the knowledge that they will be covered in the event that they cannot travel in 8 weeks time, and some insurance companies advising clients to cancel now and they are settling claims on their deposits. We regret that you did not take out any holiday insurance as advised and agreed at the time of booking not giving you the choices our other clients are making.

Reply from Affinity Villas

Sep 12, 2019

We are sorry that you felt the need to write this review as we were still in the process of dealing with damages with you and no price had been agreed. It is always disappointing when an agreement cannot be made. The damages are still in dispute; however, we find ourselves with no option but to refund your security deposit.

We were not notified by yourself of any issues that you had in resort with regards to disrepair so it is a shame that you did not get in touch with us at the time, to give us the opportunity to rectify any issues that you had.