I had the worst experience dealing with travel in my life in renting a villa through Expedia.
I travel extensively and typically rent villas instead of staying in hotels.
I rented a “villa” in Providenciales, Turks & Caicos for 4 nights, February 16th through the 21st, 2016. The name of the property is Affinity Villa. It was listed via Expedia as being 4 stars with 4 bedrooms, 4 baths and a swimming pool. The home is situated on a beautiful piece of property that overlooks a bay with an extended ocean view. The view is about the only positive aspect of the rental. The house clearly was, at one time, a pristine property. However, it has since fallen into very, very deep disrepair.
The house is simply grimy. More specifically, the house badly needs a painting. There is extensive water damage on the exterior of the house. The windows are dirty, with dead bugs and grime settled onto the base boards. The throw carpets all throughout the house are worn. The mat on the outdoor patio going into the family room is tattered. The cable service on the flat screen television in the family room is not functional. The hot tub on the patio is boarded up and does not work. Many of the lights on the patio outside do not work. The light cover on the ceiling fan in the master bedroom is absent, and wires hang down in its place. Light bulbs are not present in some of the recessed ceiling lights. The rental boasts access to a kayak down by the water. The kayak was not there on the 1st day of the rental. The owner said that he would bring the kayak the next day, which he did. However, he failed to open the locked chained gate/fence that gave access to the kayak. There are no toilet tissue dispensers in a number of the bathrooms, and rolls of toilet paper are simply left on top of the toilet.
Initially, my guests and I simply chalked up the above deficiencies to people having varying definitions of star grading. However, what happened next is just bizarre.
The 2nd day that we were there, guests were preparing to go out for dinner. At about 6:00 PM, a water leak sprung in the plumbing behind the bidet upstairs in the master bedroom. Water was gushing from behind the bidet. I immediately called the property manager and alert her of the situation. Water flooded the entire house. There was about an inch of water covering the upstairs floor. Water was gushing from the ceiling on the 1st floor into the family room and the kitchen. While waiting for the repairman to come, my guests hurriedly moved all furniture that was being rained upon out of the way and moved all of the rugs out onto the outside patio. Water was gushing out of the light sockets in the recessed lighting in the ceiling of the 1st floor. So, we shut off the power to the house via the circuit breaker to prevent an electrical short.
It took about ½ hour for a plumber to arrive. We explained the situation, gave the plumber a flashlight to find his way and left the premises.
When we got back to the house about 3 hour later, the owner and his wife were sitting in the family room. There was obvious extensive water damage in the ceiling on the 1st floor. Furniture was moved everywhere and people were mopping up water. The owner was sitting in a chair with an angry look on his face with a broken plumbing PCP joint in his hand. He essentially accused us of breaking the plumbing behind the bidet. I told the owner what happened. I let him know that no one in our party was responsible for the faulty plumbing and that we needed for him to find us new accommodations or give us a refund. Not only did he refuse, his wife was heard muttering in the background “Get the f___ out of my house.”
I called Expedia that night and spent about 4 hours on the phone with multiple representative during numerous calls trying to get new accommodations. Finally, at about 12:30 AM on Feb. 19th, an Expedia Corporate Rep named “James Black?” informed me that he had confirmed new reservations for us for the remaining 2 days of our vacation at a place called Jubilee Garden House.
The torture continues. In light of the fact that it was well after midnight we spent that night in Affinity Villa. The next day, we packed our bags and went to Jubilee Garden. When we arrived at Jubilee Garden, the owner told us that he did not have accommodations for us and that he had never confirmed with Expedia our reservation. This was at about 4 PM on Feb. 19th.
I then began calling Expedia in order to get new accommodations for my guests. From approximately 5 PM until 11 PM, I called Expedia at least 30 times trying to get a resolution. After waiting on the phone for 20 and 30 minutes at a time, I would be transferred multiple to times to different representatives, only to be disconnected after sometimes holding for as much as ½ hours. Again, this pattered was repeated multiple times until at about 11:30 PM. At around 11:30 PM, I was told by an Expedia rep that they would call me back with new accommodations. No one ever called back.
For hours, we called multiple hotels all over Providenciales trying to find accommodations. Finally in the early morning hours of February 20th, clerks at The Alexandra hotel found us 2 single rooms that each had a bed in 1 and a pullout couch in a sitting area.
I paid for this, and we stayed there for the last day of the vacation and left Turks & Caicos on Sunday, Feb. 21st.
The house was a dump, and Expedia left me and my guest high and dry
All bookings are direct with the owner 