Villaparade / Travelopo

[Lovell]

Hi everyone

Unfortunately we are the ones who have been told a cheque is in the post as our villa is no longer available for this weekend.

After plenty of emails and calls all day yesterday they still have not come back to us.

We managed to get a room at Cal Lloro in old town but if Luke to thank the forum for also trying to help yesterday.

Can safely say that our family will never be booking through villa parade again.

 

[Mark]

Cal Lloro is a perfect location and it's great to stay in the heart of the old town and watch how it changes throughout the day.

Have a great holiday

 

[kate1]

Yes Tiggy and Travelopo have splashed this across their Facebook page! That company are so unprofessional, wouldn't touch them with a barge pole. I cant believe the villa owners signed up to them!

It may well be that the villa owners haven't signed up with them. The situation in Mallorca is quite strange in that if a company such as Villa Parade is UK-based, the contract has to be negotiated through a locally-based third party. For example, we only signed our contract for 2014 (drawn up by the third party) in April, despite the fact that the whole 2014 season was already booked out (and I assume deposits had been taken). I don't know whether it's enshrined in law that things have to be done this way but it's certainly common practice. It's quite possible that villa owners have not been party to any negotiations going on - apart from initially telling their local agent that they weren't happy with Villa Parade (or possibly not even that!). Owners have to rely on the local agents being upfront and honest about what is going on - you have to trust that they are working in your best interests. You can see that this system is open to abuse.... Another added complication is that most of the local agents are in effect closed from the end of the season (November) until the beginning of March, when they start getting ready for the new season.... so there is literally no one for owners to contact during this time.

Lovell, Cal Lloro is lovely - my husband stayed there last year and has been singing its praises ever since! In many ways the old town is the nicest place to stay - so beautiful and atmospheric, especially in the evenings.

 

[roig cat]

Thanks for the explanation Kate, there will be some very disgruntled owners out there. Some properties have been on VP's books for years and were very popular.

We've booked with Villa Plus for July. Never used them before but most reviews are good.

 

[pollensacare]

all very concerning, not good publicity for Port Pollensa, hope all is resolved soon

 

[Sparky]

all very concerning, not good publicity for Port Pollensa, hope all is resolved soon

Agree totally .

 

[Malc84]

ABTA Advice

Hi Guys I work in the Travel Industry so would advise firstly as those above have done so to contact ABTA immediately.
If you have paid on a Credit Card you should have financial protection against losses as standard in line with the Financial Conduct Authorities regulations as the transaction is over £100.00. Contact your card issuer and explain the situation and they should look to investigate this for you so even if the company you booked with are not ABTA Bonded you should hopefully still get your money back. ATOL only comes into play if you booked flights through either company.
You can also check companies house web site to see if the companies in question are solvent and where their businesses are registered within the UK, if no mention on companies house they are not based in the UK at all.
ABTA and ATOL is the minimum industry standard requirement within the Travel Industry, it costs a company around £50,000.00 to £100,000.00 per year to be a member but it ring fences your money until after you have traveled and that is where the protection comes into play.

My advice before booking a Villa through a company is to check companies House to make sure they have got a good history and don't go bust every couple of years. You then can check ABTA and ATOL protection through their web site too and once you've done the homework pay on a Credit Card.

If you are booking direct with an Owner, ABTA doesn't come into it so make sure you check reviews from a number of sources and again always pay the Deposit and final balance on a Credit Card.
Use social network sites, set up a page and if people have stayed at a particular Villa/Apartment they will comment and join the page this gives you further reassurance the property and owners exist.

I really hope this is useful and those of you caught up in this mess have a positive outcome

 

[Malc84]

Thanks for the explanation Kate, there will be some very disgruntled owners out there. Some properties have been on VP's books for years and were very popular.

We've booked with Villa Plus for July. Never used them before but most reviews are good.

We used them last year and they were great. It was our first experience of PP and we are back again this September with them and again next June.

 

[sws97sdg]

Just goggled and found this story on this on the Huddersfield Daily examiner, it sound like it is just a scam!!
Read the full story there, this is a quote from it

"Travel watchdogs are investigating a bizarre mix-up over a Huddersfield holiday company.

Dozens of customers of Villa Parade have received emails from another travel company, telling them their holidays will not be honoured.

In some cases, the holidaymakers have paid out thousands of pounds for villas in the Spanish sun.

But Villa Parade have hit back insisting there are no problems and claiming that their database details have been illegally used.

Now officials of the travel association ABTA and lawyers are conducting an inquiry into the allegations.

Villa Parade, who have been based in Huddersfield for the past 15 years, are members of ABTA but the other company, Travelopo, have been excluded from the organisation."

 

[Sparky]

I just hope that it gets sorted out sooner rather than later .

 

[kate1]

From what I hear Villa Parade have not paid their owners for most of last year... so there clearly are problems! I'm sure most of their owners would have told them at the end of last season that they didn't want to work with them again - I know I would if I hadn't been paid for a year! - the bottom line is, Villa Parade clearly should not have been advertising and booking villas which they knew the owners no longer wanted them to have. I imagine they were hoping that the villa owners would not be able to sort out a new contract with another company over the winter months when everyone is closed for business. Which doesn't make what Travelopo are trying to do any better. The whole thing is a dreadful mess and I feel sorry for potential clients and for ex-Villa Parade owners - who have lost a year's income through no fault of their own.

EDIT: Sparky and Pollensa are quite correct in what they say - as I haven't spoken to an actual Villa Parade owner I am not 100% sure of what has happened with their contracts, so it isn't really right for me to draw conclusions.

 

[Sparky]

At the moment there seems to be a lot of rumour and hearsay which i don't think is helping anyone, i think we should wait for the results of the investigations.

 

[Bails]

As Sparky intimates it is dangerous and premature to apportion blame without full access to the background to this situation, and some of the information around seems to be conflicting. Our previous experience of Villaparade has largely been positive, but after two days of not being able to obtain a communication response via e-mail or telephone, views are inevitably likely to be rather prejudicial. We have two villas booked in May/June and September 2014 and are assuming that both will be affected by the Travelopo developments. Refunds if offered will take at best several weeks - assuming there are no cashflow difficulties for the company - future bookings are bound to be affected with a reduction in income). Obviously in respect of the earlier holiday we will need to take independent action within the next few days to obtain alternative accommodation to safeguard the expenditure on flights, car-hire and car parking. I have read that Villaparade have already provided alternative accommodation for some clients booked in October 2014, so I am not sure where the issue of prioritising comes into this for people departing in the next few weeks who have had no response. It is also rather irksome (though presumably "good" business practice) for Villaparade to be providing a press release stating that there are no issues for concern and all matters will be resolved. The whole situation highlights the continued fragile state of the holiday market where concepts of trust and loyalty are easily jettisoned. In particular the roles of the local agents need to come under further scrutiny, specifically as they cannot be held to account in the country where the holiday company is located. How were Travelopo able to access Villaparade's client database ? Out of interest I am aware that the local agent used by Villaparade in northern Mallorca has in the past been Business Resorts who are located on Carrer de Jonquet 19 in Pollensa town. Does anyone who has recently been in Pollensa know if they are still trading as agents for Villaparade ?

 

[pollensa]

As already mentioned above there are a lot of rumours about. Please do not post anything that you do not know to be true.

There is currently a statement on the ABTA site regarding the situation (dated 29/04) - see ABTA statement regarding Villa Parade - ABTAand the ABTA no. for travelopo has now been removed from their advertisement on puertopollensa.com.

As far as I know Villa Parade is either offering alternative accommodation or a refund and not surprisingly is dealing with the most immediate bookings first.

Do not assume that the owners of the properties concerned were aware of the situation as many UK companies deal with local agents (and these agents deal with the owners).

I can understand the concern of those who have booked with Villa Parade and I have read elsewhere that if you cannot contact them by phone, they are responding to Emails. I also understand that this situation does not affect all of Villa Parade's villas in Pollensa and may not even be the case if you have received an email from travelopo. Do make sure that you get confirmation from Villa Parade (even if it takes a while for them to respond!)

This really is a shame and I do hope that this does get resolved quickly and those who are affected find alternative accommodation soon.

 

[jelh59]

Managed to get through to VP we have an apartment booked in October and yes the apartment we booked is no longer available they were due to e-mail alternatives but haven't received them yet. Looking at the web site there are no similar options will request a refund and see what happens! We have booked with VP before with no problems and also booked privately and had our first issue this year with a private booking! We had booked the Brisa Marina apartment which I think is owned by the restaurant owner so if anyone knows if we can still rent the apartment please let me know.

 

[Bails]

Just a quick update on our circumstances, it has been a long week. We were finally able to communicate with Villaparade on Wednesday and they offered two alternative villa options for the May trip. We accepted one of the options, and perhaps significantly they only confirmed the booking after contacting the owner directly. Presumably they are currently operating without a local agent in place. We have not yet resolved the September trip and may try to seek out the owner of that particular villa for more information when we arrive in Pollensa at the end of the month. There is still considerable speculation afoot concerning the background to all this and sadly no real winners.

 

[Harters]

Just received the email from Travelopo and am now emailing VP about our September booking - the villa we'd booked appears on the list of "problem" places. I'm reassured that we've only paid a deposit (although that's five hundred quid) and that VP appears to be doing the right thing in offering alternative accommodation or a refund, in line with its ABTA membership.

Reading the posts above, I'm still unclear what has actually happened here - although presumably owners have cancelled their contracts with VP. What is not reassuring about Travelopo is that ABTA says it has cancelled their membership - presumably indicating that they may be "iffy" in some way.

At present, I think we're favouring getting the refund from VP, rather than risk taking another let which may also get cancelled sometime between now and September. That said, we need to get cracking sorting out accommodation as we've also already booked flights.

 

[lovemallorca]

I do have quite some sympathy with Villaparade. They must be run of their feet trying to sort this out.

Imagine if only 30 properties are involved - Each one may have upto 30 weeks of booking per year. Even if 75% of the time they had pre-existing bookings, that is over 650 customers suddenly phoning a relatively small company.

It is no use bringing in temporary staff to deal with enquries as there is no time to train them. It must be just a case of head down trying to deal with it. No wonder it is hard trying to get through.

We have always had very good dealings with VillaParade and whatever has happened I certainly recognise that they have brought a great deal of inbound visitors to the area.

I have no doubt that lessons will be learnt, but thus far, from the comments being posted by customers, things do, I hope, slowly seem to be being sorted out.

 

[jelh59]

Requested refund after being offered two alternatives that weren't anything like our orginal booking but no response for request of refund has anyone else received a full refund if so how long did it take?

 

[Harters]

Reading the TripAdvisor thread, it seems that VP is behaving properly in refunding money - seems to be taking a few days which I suppose is understandable.

We've never used anyone else other than VP. Are there any other companies that folk particularly recommend? We've been looking at Villa Select and Solmar Villas, both of which are ABTA bonded seemingly, but are worrying about jumping from frying pan into the fire.