Belvilla

We have been planning for a family holiday and when my wife stumbled upon Belvilla, it raised our curiosity! We could actually book a holiday home that would fit our family with a lake view, we felt it was the right one for us. Belvilla even made it easy for us to choose the right holiday home for us. They had tags such as loved by families and fun for kids. This made it easier for us to choose. It was a delight booking a holiday getaway with Belvista as the kids had much fun with great hosts. We could relax as our boys had fun. Too bad the holiday had to end, but we will be booking again soon.

E

Ethan O' Riley 3 years ago

172

60

Reply

Worst experience ever!

We booked an apartment for 7 persons through Booking.com in a ski area, in Austria . It appeared that the apartment was actually sub-rented by Belvilla by Oyo.

We supposed to check-in on a Saturday afternoon, we arrived at the location after 1600 km driving, but:
- there was no one at the property
- no access code was provided
- the phone number on the booking check-in page was not even dialable!!!!

We started to look for Belvilla customer support numbers but there was only the robot answering with the message that we will be able to talk to someone only on the upcoming Monday, customer service being available only during working days and working hours.

We spent 7 hours trying to reach out to someone from Belvilla to provide us the access code and with Booking.com, trying to find another, more expensive accommodation, in peak season, in a fully booked ski area.

I find it outrageous and in-conceivable for a travel agency, to be in this type of business and not to provide any kind of customer support during the weekends, when by default, people are traveling during the weekends.

This situation incurred significant additional cost for us: we had to pay the tax fee again, a 286 EUR phone invoice (Booking.com support/UK), not to talk about the extra price that we had to pay for the new accommodation. At least Booking.com cancelled the initial reservation without any cost for us.

Belvilla by Oyo didn't even bother to reply when I requested the refund of the tax fee that I paid directly to them. Even during working hours it is impossible to reach them by phone.

This was the worst travel experience ever.

S

Silvia Bobariu 10 months ago

0

0

Reply

Reference: 1E NH P1 NQ from 3 September 2023

What have made me to write this comment? The worst ever experience with holiday operator – BELVILLA. No holiday/leisure company has ever treated in the way BELVILLA did.
I am frequent traveller, spending 4-5 months a year working remotely from abroad. This time I have chosen Tenerife for my remote office. I have planned to spend 1.5 month over there, moving around the island. I have booked a really nice, spacious apartment with 2 floors with Airbnb. As they offered an early booking discount, the price was quite reasonable. The host – BELVILLA – confirmed my booking and sent me a voucher for my 2 weeks stay. It was 3 September.
10 days later I have received a message on whatsup from the BELVILLA contact person (in line with the data on voucher) that my booking is not valid. The double booking was an alleged reason. No apologize, no solution. I have asked for conclusion. They said they will propose me alternatives. In fact the alternatives, they proposed, were not a reasonable proposals – totally different locations or single room!
I have asked BELVILLA for serious and reasonable proposal from their side. I have not received any. Afterwards BELVILLA totally ignored me not replying on airbnb, messages or even despite promising me contact on review site – trustpilot.com.
As a result I have lost time, energy and money as I have to book different place with much higher price as it was closer to start of my journey. Additionally not much choice of places to stay was left.
Be cautious with BELVILLA. They offers look superb while booking. Later on comes the real (brutal) reality.

M

Marcin 1 year ago

0

0

Reply

Please think twice before booking accommodation via Belvilla. If you do decide to go ahead please be prepared for:
-Your accommodation being cancelled by Belvilla 10 days before the holiday start date.
-Difficulty with connecting to Customer Service (when you dial Belvilla, you get given options, one being Customer Service. Sometimes the line will connect, sometimes you will be cut off and sometimes you will be connected and join someone else's conversation!)
-When you do manage to talk to someone at Customer Service, you soon realise the person has no authority to make decisions of any kind, and they, for some strange reason, cannot share their team leader's name or contact details with you, and also can't put you though to talk to them.
-The Customer Care department, who by the way, you as the customer can't contact directly (Ironic I know!) also have zero authority to make any decisions. And again their Team leader's name can't be shared with you so that you can escalate your concerns if you feel the response had been unsatisfactory.
-an experience that leaves you as the customer feeling massively let down by a big company that had no empathy with the situation they had created, and offered no real solution to make things right.
-Being treated like you are just a number, not a person, and tough if your holiday does not go as planned.
-As I was told a few times by Customer Service on the phone: ' Sorry we are a big company and so there is no-one I can put you through to'. They are so big their customers don't matter anymore.

I have left a formal complaint with Belvilla, and I very much welcome someone from Belvilla to give me a call to discuss my situation and what can be done to prevent other families from going through the stress and worry that I have, in dealing with Belvilla.

I am awaiting a refund. Belvilla has proven to me they can't be trusted with holiday bookings, and time will tell whether I should have trusted them with my money..

I

Ingrid Herholdt 2 years ago

85

4

Reply

SCAM SCAM SCAM

Booked with this company 3 months ago for a holiday next week. Paid in full. All fine.

Within 2-weeks of booking, continuing up to last week, I was harassed constantly with emails threatening to cancel my booking due to non-payment. I replied confirming payment, they then assured me my booking was secured every week. This went on for 5-weeks non-stop. Exhausting.

Then 6-weeks prior to my holiday, I started receiving cancellation emails. I replied asking the reason & again every week I was assured that my booking was solid and to disregard the emails. But the emails continued weekly. This harassment really put a dampener on the holiday. We would have cancelled just for stress relief but there was absolutely no accommodation left due to an event in the area. Extremely unprofessional and unsettling when holiday plans have been made.

4-weeks ago I asked a manager to call me for clarification of what was going on. Never happened.

5-days before my departure, they rang to tell me to cancel my booking as the accommodation was double booked. I told them this was booked 3-months ago & there was no alternative accommodation. If I was told 3-months ago I may have had a chance at alternative accommodation but not this close to the event. I advised them I had pre-booked activities so I could not cancel. They said I must cancel or I will not get a refund and the house is not available to me. They told me to cancel my holiday and any plans and to make alternative arrangements.

I asked for reimbursement of my non-refundable activities & for a manager to call me. They hung up the phone. Never to be heard from again.

Complete disaster to book with. Honestly, pay anything else to NOT BOOK with this company. Absolute scam artists & your holiday will be ruined with the bombardment of conflicting emails they send you weekly.

C

Claire 2 years ago

22

1

Reply

It is now 11 months since we made the mistake of booking with this company and I am still attempting to gain full reimbursement of the £509 we spent on this awful experience. I have just had an offer of 200€ credit to be used within three weeks, being told by the company that ‘this is the best we can offer at the moment’.

We arrived at the property at 16.00. We found it to be in an annexe and not in the main building which is featured on the website.

The first impression was of an uncared-for property outside and a dismal atmosphere inside.

The stairs immediately inside the door were far too steep for one of my friends to climb. The dark and poorly fitted out bathroom, although we knew would be on the ground floor, would not have been reached by her as it would have been far too dangerous to navigate the stairs at night.

The top of the stairs leads into a bedroom from which you can enter another. Therefore, these was no privacy.

There was no wi-fi which was problematic for us all especially me who had to complete some urgent work on-line. Wi-fi is also a general expectations nowadays of any accommodation.

The toilet cistern was constantly filling up as there was a problem with it. That is perhaps why the water to the toilet had been closed off and we had to open it on arrival.

Generally, the fitting and fixtures were minimal and of a poor quality - and uncomfortable. There was very minimal decoration throughout the property.

There no blinds in the kitchen or dining room. A shabby, ill-fitting curtain was up against the window in the 'living room' - there was no privacy at all.

The windows were dirty.

The exterior of the property was not maintained, plants were dead and the ‘barbecue’ was a pile of rusted metal in the corner of the driveway.

We were left after nearly 9 hours travelling by car in a property that was not fit to be let out. We had to arrange alternative accommodation nearby at our own expense.

N

Nigel Jefferson 6 months ago

0

0

Reply

I didn't actually make it as far as reaching the property.

I booked a property on booking.com - a website I have used for many years without any issues. I received a confirmation email from booking.com, and then an email from Belvilla telling me that my payment hadn't been processed, and I would need to follow a link they provided to make payment within 24 hours, otherwise my booking would be cancelled. I was suspicious of this because I have never experienced this before with any other booking I have made through booking.com, but I researched Belvilla online and they had some legitimate, decent reviews, so I decided to try the link anyway and see what it said.

The link did not open anything other than an entirely blank page. The email I had received from them had also provided details to log in to their website, so I tried them - no luck again. I tried emailing them with the email address provided, and using the booking.com messaging system, because I liked the property and needed to finalise the booking. I didn't receive any response other than more emails sending the same non-functioning link - there was no response to the specific question I had, just more generic, automatic emails telling me I needed to pay. By this point I wasn't particularly keen to part with my money but I decided to try ringing them too, using the phone number provided. I tried three times - the first time, nothing happened. The second time, a recorded message played twice and then the line went dead. The third time, the recorded message played twice again and then a lady answered. I explained why I was ringing and she hung up on me.

By this stage I had contacted booking.com and my bank to express my concerns that the booking was not legitimate. I sent a request, via booking.com, to cancel the booking for free even though when I booked it free cancellation was not an option - I felt it was justified, given the confusion and my distrust of the whole process, but was worried that I would be charged regardless. I subsequently received an email from Belvilla telling me that my booking had been cancelled because I hadn't made payment. I was relieved by this but needed to check again with booking.com that I still wouldn't be charged. They have told me that I will NOT be charged, but I will still be checking with my bank, given that booking.com (and presumably Belvilla, by extension) had access to my payment card to make the booking.

I will never go through this process with a Belvilla property again - even if it isn't a scam, it simply isn't worth the hassle! I have booked with a different website and will hopefully still have a good holiday!

L

Lizzie 9 months ago

0

0

Reply

555

-

2 years ago

87

0

Reply

555

-

2 years ago

81

0

Reply