Avantstay

AVANTSTAY hosts a cabin called PennyView in Sevierville, TN. My family and I vacation to this area every year and have for over 30 years. We have stayed in dozens of cabins over the years and have never stayed in one where the bedrooms did not have dressers or a chest of drawers to put any clothing. The closet in 1 of the 4 bedrooms was locked off for housekeeping making this room without a dresser or closet. Where in the world were we expected to put our clothing? I was irate because I paid 5000 for the week to have to live out of my suitcase. I asked for a simple discount or partial refund from this management company immediately upon arrival but Jayson and his team refused, saying that dressers were not listed as amenities for the bedrooms! And since there have supposedly been no complaints to me prior about this, it didn’t warrant as a refund situation. Guess my complaint didn’t matter lol. The 3 bedrooms that had closets only had a super small shelf so you had no where to put underwear, shorts, jeans, socks, etc anywhere. All you could do was hang your shirts. Had I known this cabin didn’t have basic amenities such as dressers or places to store clothing in the bedrooms I would have kept scrolling on the internet, and I definitely would not have booked it for 5000 for the week. This is absurd. And the management team and owner of this cabin knows it. And Avantstay all but tried to make you feel like you were the crazy one for expecting some sort of compensation for not having complete bedrooms. I will say they did offer to give us 100$ back for the blankets we had to buy, due to this unit being so cold on bottom level, but that wasn’t what was important to me. I can understand having to buy some extra detergent or blankets. I understand they only manage and host this cabin but they also team with the owner to agree on costs. Their website should tell you that the bedrooms are lacking this basic amenity. Who searches for a dresser in a picture of a bedroom on the internet? Who looks through a list of amenities to make sure that the bedrooms have dressers? I have never had to in decades of booking cabins. This is the last time I will stay anywhere with Avantstay and definitely not at PennyView cabin. They had an opportunity to make this right and chose not to. I don’t want to pay thousands of dollars for my one yearly vacation that I look forward to tremendously to have to live out of a suitcase. Shame on this rental company and the owner of the cabin! After contacting BBB, Avantstay is acting like it’s completely normal for this cabin not to have closet or dressers if they weren’t shown in the pictures. Also stating that I have “buyer’s remorse which I don’t. Just wanted what I paid for and since the bedrooms were incomplete ( the one couldn’t hold clothes at all) I think it is on them to provide some compensation of some sort.
They don’t have all 4 walls on the pictures online. And like I said above who searches for things like that? Things like those are expected in a cabin half that price much less one of that caliber. Give me a break.

To: Dustin Abney

Subject: Re: AvantStay

Dustin,

Let me tell you a story of who we are. You have just come aboard and learning the works of the organization. In January 2019 I was personally assured by Ben Gold that all my good furniture would be shrink wrapped. That never came to be as we saw two years later, when 50% of our furniture, because it had not bee shrink wrapped was ruined, as was witnessed by many people including your workers. At this point I would like to mention that not only Ben Gold had promised me that all furniture would be shrink wrapped, but it would be well cared for. By being able to store my furnishings in our basement, AvantStay saved themselves thousand upon thousand of dollars worth of storage fees in Truckee, CA.When COVID hit, Bill and I were the first to offer a plausible solution to save the day and lowering the cost, for a period of time thereby allowing Avant Stay to continue staying in business. We could have asked for an increase in rental payments after a one year period of time and did not.I found my lawn, trees, bushes, flowers ( upon my return home) never had they been cared for or watered. We had an automatic sprinkler system. Our garden was in shambles. It took the gardening company two whole days with four workers to bring the garden back to its previous state somewhat.Our microwave had been taken from the wall and never replaced by a like one. Took 3 weeks of my work to obtain a new one, and I had to do all the work. The seat to the toilet had been broken, and I had to replace it. I wonder how many homeowners that are with AvantStay live to hear this entire story.The basement and garage areas were in shambles. Took myself, my daughter, and two man to clean it up.Our beautiful beams that cost a great deal of money. Your people had bore 3 HUGE holes in our beam to place a chair there, all without our permission. WHAT? WHEN IS THAT EVER O.K.?I had made an estimate of charges, just an estimate, of all the furniture that had been completely ruined by not being shrink wrapped as I agreed upon with Ben Gold on the onset of the lease. Four wooden decorative boats were completely ruined and had to be thrown away completely. Each had a cost of between $250.00 to $550.00. Those were never even reported on the list of ruined items.When I recapped the present cost of the furniture, which was below market price, I waited four weeks to receive a reply. A very very conservative estimate of between $3,500 and $3,800. And that Sum did not include my ruined Four wooden boats. Total reimbursement was $2,50O, vs. $3,800 asked for, and not received, and that was also for allowing Avant Stay to place items in my basement vs. a storage facility which saved them $2,800 per month easily.After the workers from AvanStay stayed with me for about three days to fix things, they wanted to have nothing more to do with me including the on site manager. I had to hire two additional men, out of pocket to complete all unfinished work by AvantStay, which cost me approximately $1,000.One year, we had to pay half of the cost associated with the cleaning of the roof of accumulated snow as it was causing damage to the house, and AvantStay was not taking care of it.I could go on and on with the inaptidude of AvantStay, that during our relationship of two years got rid of at least three managers that I know of.Our outside of our home was ruined by woodpeckers as no one took the initiative to place the silver strips on the outside of the house. And two men had to be called in to fix it completely.I could go on and on of the lax attitude towards our beautiful home by AvantStay, but I don't want to bore you with all the details, nor do I have the time.You wish I take my comment off all Yelp, yet, it is my intention to place this on all other media so that people be made aware of what ready goes on.Do the right thing, reimburse us for damages sustained at our property, and all the ruined furniture, because of lack of care, which was allowed to be ruined so completely that it could not be sold.

PAY FOR DAMAGES TO MY HOME

ANNA GOODWIN AND BILL GOODWIN

I’ve yet to experience a company that has such money grubbing practices and impersonal customer service as AvantStay. I would highly recommend staying FAR away from this company. We had a very unfortunate situation that was met with zero understanding or action. The home that we rent every summer for years in San Diego (the shore front) was recently sold and newly managed by AvantStay. We were contracted for two weeks in July and had already paid our deposit to the previous owner (which we still haven’t received a refund). I contacted AvantStay to rebook our dates and after our conversation about specific dates they DOUBLED and even TRIPLED the nightly rate for those night. In less than 8 hours. Absolutely disgusting business practice. Not to mention every interaction was with a different representative so I constantly had to repeat myself. This year has been hard enough, now the summer house that we brought kids home from the hospital to is so outrageously overpriced that we will have to break our kids hearts and an 11 year tradition. This type of business practice should be investigated thoroughly. Shame on you AvantStay.

I loved working with this company. The houses are all beautiful and the customer service was great. I am recommending Avant Stay to all of my friends.

I booked a stay in Newport a couple weeks ago and found the entire stay to be a smooth, enjoyable process. I didn't need to contact anyone for check-in (door-code), the property was ready for me when I arrived, and I was able to enjoy the beach, just a few steps away, without any problems. Spacious, clean, and pretty cool games/items in the home.

Booking with AvantStay is like going to Fyre Festival. It looks amazing online, but then you go and it's terrible.
Upon Arrival...
â?¢ Broken AC in the casita, meaning we had to wait a week before moving into it.
â?¢ Gatorade bottles and candy wrappers under the beds.
â?¢ Blue paint smeared on a set of french doors.
â?¢ VISIBLY dirty light switches (great for covid times).
â?¢ Stains on the sheets, clearly not changed.
â?¢ Dirty linens.
â?¢ 2 broken vacuums (likely attributing to the dirty feeling around the house). We requested a new one and after vacuuming just one room the photo shows much much pile up/dirt was there.
â?¢ A filthy, filthy, filthy dining room rug. Like literally under the rug was a second rug of about 3cm high of dirt in the shape of the holes from the actual rug.
â?¢ The coffee machine was so dirty we thought it was broken for the first few days. It turns out, it just needed to be cleaned before our first use.
â?¢ There was steel wool and leaves in the sink.
â?¢ There was a gapping hole in the screen door.
â?¢ Large stains on every carpet (like a couple feet long).

Plus we experienced a full business day without the internet and with Avantstay blaming the internet company & an outage. We called the internet company and there was no outage. We asked neighbors and there was no outage. It was only our house that needed a reboot and required a login only avantstay corporate had access to.

I can keep going but I think you get the picture here. It was filthy in COVID times, a lot was broken, and we weren't happy about it. It was more like glamping. The cleaning crew came back and expressed how overworked they were. The AC guy said that a single part was broken and needed repair (something avantstay would have known had they checked).

Ultimately, there's no question that this property was not prepared properly and certainly was not ready to rent. It was wildly stressful and provoked so much anxiety for all of the guests. It is their responsibility to be ahead of these issues before guests come in. It is the responsibility of the company to inform us, the customer, that our stay either needed to be delayed, switched or was not going to be as advertised due to the amount of work required to bring it up to standard. We specifically asked before booking, "does the AC work?" and upon arrival, it didn't work. Things like this are major oversights and in these "unprecedented" times it seems like the best path for this home would have been to slow down on renting and determine the best course of action to ensure your experience matches your advertising.

As a form of retribution, AvantStay gave us less than an 8% refund. The amount they reimbursed doesn't even cover the cost of cleaning supplies and the time it took us to take on a lot of the figuring out/work/cleaning for the issues they presented us with.

The worst part is, they don't have a review system like others. It seems there is no accountability for their actions (or lack thereof) except here on Revdex.com. I hope they take these reports seriously and make the much needed top-down changes to actually give guests the experience they are selling.

I had a group traveling to Arizona for a girls trip before the wedding and of course COVID came along and ruined our plans. This was supposed to be a great time away and a very happy time for our girl that was getting married. Our state mandates that we do a 2 week quarantine traveling to certain states and of course Arizona is on the list. Because of this we had to cancel our trip due to the fact that we are traveling with FIRST RESPONDERS! Who are putting their lives on the line everyday to help battle this virus and they cant risk picking up the virus or taking an extra 2 weeks of vacation due to the mandatory quarantine. Avantstay only offered us a credit to use up to a year and were very aware that we were traveling with first responders, but had no compassion. How am I going to get 10 people together a year from now when everyday is so uncertain and most of the homes that they have are on the west coast where the virus just keeps spiking. They kept pushing it off on the home owner but you are the company that does business with these people so I think they should have tried harder to help us out. On top of it all people are losing their jobs left and right and could really use the money for something better than having it sit in limbo for a credit that we might never get to use. O and did I mention it was $2700!!!!!! I am sick to my stomach over this and there is nothing I can do but if I can save someone the headache it helps. PLEASE DO NOT USE AVANTSTAY!!!!! And don't tell me to call customer service because I have 5+ times and get nowhere.

I, just like many others would give this company a BIG FAT ZERO if it was available!! We booked a property in CA back on Feb. 2nd for 11 ladies flying in from Texas on Sept. 17th-20th. We all made the decision to cancel due to COVID and after hearing that CA had once again closed all restaurants, bars, wineries, etc. We also have one person in our party that is Immune compromised and has a letter from her doctor stating that she can't travel. We canceled the reservation on July 14th (65 days) before our reservation date. Avantstay quickly informed me that they were keeping 20% of the total fee that I had already paid 100% of back on Feb. 2nd.

I contacted VRBO and they said that their policy is to refund 100% to the customers due to the COVID issue and they highly encourage the management companies to honor the same policy. Through my research, I've found that other rental companies are also giving a 100% refund to their customers. The exact property that we had rented on VRBO for the same dates advertised on the listing that you can get 100% refund if canceled by August 19th. That makes absolutely no since to me considering we booked in February and canceled 65 days before our reservation!!
We have rented through VRBO several times and NEVER had an issue like this. Evidently Avantstay isn't concerned about customer service issues within their company. I can assure you that they have definitely lost future business with this entire group of 11 people!
*** R

Avant Stay refusal to provide a full refund or credit on stay after San Diego County issues legal order to stay at home within the 30 day cancellation
During our booking April 15 there was a stay at home order in effect that was issued April 10th and expiring on the 30th of that month "Effective immediately, and continuing until April 30, 2020, the following will be in effect for San Diego County (county):."

The next order that was issued is dated as June 19th, which at that point is within our 30 day cancellation window. Shortly after the Order was in place, we initiated the cancellation and requested a full refund from AvantStay. To clarify, and per the legal documents issed by San Diego County, there were not any travel regulations or Orders during the period of May 1, 2020 and June 18, 2020, and therefore no reason for our plans to change and/or need to cancel.

Based on the documents mentioned above, we are legally not allowed to stay on your property due to restrictions of San Diego County. Avant Stay should not be able to defer to a canellation policy in such a fluid and developing situation of unforseen events. The consumer has been fully taken advantage of in this situation and deserves a full refund.

not professionally cleaned, unresponsive + many more issues
We stayed in their Cooper property in Bend, Oregon for a full week after the 4th of July holiday. While the house itself was beautiful and the property glorious (the only reason for 2 stars) -- there were significant hospitality issues:

1. STAINED LINENS: Stains were found on 3 of 5 beds and we ended up washing the majority of the linens ourselves to ensure cleanliness. Plus footprint stains were found on bath towels, which again we washed ourselves.

2. DIRTY DISHES: We had to wash all dishes, cups / glasses and the majority of silverware before using as it was all crusted with food particles

3. BROKEN TOILET: The half-bath toilet was constantly running and got worse over the course of our stay. The company was unresponsive and never came to fix it.

4. LEAKY HOT TUB: The hot tub leaked and loosing water, dripping down under the deck. It also wasn't functioning properly and this required us to contact the company as well, again interrupting our stay

5. UNNECESSARY MAINTENANCE: During our stay, we were required to allow pest control to spray the property and had to coordinate with AvantStay and the pest control company to determine when they could come - totally unacceptable. Another day, someone showed up and mowed the lawn, excusable on its own but this list is getting long.

6. PLUS OTHER ISSUES:
Trash and recycling bins were left at the end of the very long driveway, requiring us to either haul the bins back or drop of waste by car.
Dish soap was not provided and we had to find it and fill a vessel ourselves from under the sink.
Dish detergent was not provided and again required us to contact AvantStay, which was the one thing they did end up bringing to us.
The basement smelled musty and clearly hasn't been aired out recently.
The house manual and onsite instructions for connecting to the wifi were incorrect.

We brought these concerns directly to the company through out our stay and were told by a customer service rep they would get back to us in 48 hours (at which point we'd already left). They then asked us to use a link to "schedule a meeting with a manager" and that link was broken. We're still waiting on a resolution.

We're sympathetic to the occasionally mishap, but for ~$700/night this is completely unacceptable.

Avantstay and host of property refuse to refund ouR down payment even with a doctors note That my parents cannot travel at this time.
We booked a house in Temecula, CA for our parent's 60th wedding anniversary. We paid the down payment and then due to circumstances outside of our control and the pandemic we found out from their doctor that neither one of them should be traveling. We were asked to provide a doctor's note, which we did. Due to their age and health issues it is not safe for my 86 and 83 year old parents to travel. Since this was for their 60th we went to Avantstay as well as the host of the property and they refused to return outr down payment , even though they have been told by their doctor cannot travel. Both Avantstay and the host would prefer us put our parent's health at jeopardy then honor their commitment of producing a doctor's note and cancelling well in advance. We paid $***.80 and even though we provided what they asked for, they, Avantstay and the host refused to provide a refund. For whatever reason they don't seem to care about the health of my parents, even in this pandemic.

My brother has tirelessly tried working with Avantstay as well as the host and we have nowhere else to turn to try and get them to make this right.

Below is the confirmation from Avantstay with dates.

Sleeps 20 Amazing Estate Views of Wine Country Twilight Vines by AvantStay
Entire home/apt hosted by AvantStay Experiential Inc

Thursday
August 13, 2020
Check-in is anytime after 4:00 PM

Thursday
August 20, 2020
Checkout by 11:00 AM
Address
XXXXX *** XXXXX, United States
Confirmation code
***

Please let me know if you need any more information.

AvantStay refuses to honor a full refund for a cancelled stay due to COVID-19 even after documentation for medical restrictions was submitted.
A stay was booked on February 26, 2020 for an AvantStay house in *** (***) for September 4-7, 2020. A deposit was paid for *** using an American Express credit card. This trip was cancelled due to coronavirus. With current confirmed cases at 50,000+, our group decided to make a responsible and educated decision to cancel this trip. Our group has 10+ guests flying in from all over the country, which would not be safe or responsible, especially if a resurgence occurs in fall 2020. Additionally, one of the guests had provided AvantStay documentation of a hospital travel ban with a provided hospital badge. AvantStay did not accept it and still would not give us a 100% refund.

In an attempt to not lose our money, we offered to transfer our reservation to August 19-22, 2021, which was rejected by AvantStay - as the credit has to be used 1 year from issue with an expiration in June 2021.

Multiple calls and messages were made to AvantStay starting on May 31, 2020. AvantStay continues to still take a "20% fee." I have expressed to AvantStay how dissatisfied I am with their customer service and policies and am requesting a full refund. I have been able to obtain full refunds for all other trips booked this year through AvantStay's competitors. My plan is to continue to provide information of this issue via online review platforms so others can be fully aware of AvantStay's customer service, business model, and lack of compassion during a pandemic.

We were booked to stay March 20 -23rd Cancelled because of Covid-19 Stay at home order. Company will not give refud
We had made reservations to stay at a BRBO through Avantstay for my daughters wedding. Because of Covid -19 and the Fed and CA state mandated stay at home order we had to cancel. The company said they would not refund the money. But they would refund the cleaning fee to a place we were not staying at. I contacted my credit card company to dispute but they fought it and said we were not allowed to cancel per contract. A contract in which we hadn't signed yet. Credit card said I had to take it up with the company. Now I am stuck fighting a company that will not work with me. Do I need to get a letter from the president and governor that we were on a stay at home order. I guess covid 19 was not a valid reason funny the wedding venue where we also booked rooms gave us our refund immediately. This is so wrong in so many ways. Now my account has been deleted and they will not return my calls, I am out *** and then didn't even refund my cleaning fee. The company didn't even try to work with me and offer a different solution like to rebook at a later date.

Company misrepresents their properties and does not repair anything in a timely manner
AvantStay has extremely slick marketing for their website, but their properties are substandard and nothing really works. They have the cheapest most basic linens, dishes, pillows (all from Amazon Basics) and then try and pass off a tremendously derelict property as something high end.

No one even visited the property before we arrived to prepare it for are arrival, the internet did not work, when we had electrical problems the service guy asked us to fix them ourselves, the washer machine broke and it took two weeks to get a new one, the garbage disposal was not working and they said they would look at after our checkout (had to clean everything out by hand and skip using that sink). We also had rats and mice all through the cupboards and most of our food was contaminated and needed to be thrown away.

As far as service, there was none.

The company had completely shut off their phone numbers and there was no getting through to the main office. It looks like they were completely avoiding customers.

Booked a stay with them to be in September end up needing a bigger place and need to cancel within the week of booking they meet my whole deposit ð??¡ now I'm out $1200 how am I supposed to book anything else now ð?¤¦ not a good company to book with.

Company is unwilling to provide refund for cancellation due to COVID-19 pandemic
I booked a short-term rental home for August 2020 for my family to stay during my son's wedding. My son and his fiancee are frontline workers, physicians in NYC, and postponed their wedding out of concern for the safety of our family. All of our relatives have been able to cancel their hotel/lodging reservations for full refunds without any difficulty. All of the guests who would have traveled to stay in this rental are in an elderly and vulnerable population, and we worry that traveling to this rental (which was booked for 15+ guests) will be dangerous to our health. We have contacted AvantStay asking for a full refund however they are not accommodating this request. This reservation costed over $***.

Wish I could give ZERO We had made plans to stay at a BRBO through Avantstay and were forced to cancel because of Fed and CA state mandated stay at home Orders. We were refused a refund zero, nothing, nada. and offered to remove the cleaning fee on the place we were not staying at. $1500 gone like that. Do I need to get a letter from the president and governor that we were on a stay at home order. I guess covid 19 was not a valid reason funny the wedding venue (and all others involved )where we also booked rooms gave us our refund immediately. THIS IS SO WRONG!

Beware of this company. If I could give it zero stars I would. I had booked a home to rent form them in March for a trip in July. The web page said under their cancellation policy that 100% refund if cancelled 30 days in advance. The COVID-19 hit and I cancelled since we are elderly and are also planning to vacation with young children and low and behold they do not stand behind this policy. They gave back 80% and kept 20% for doing absolutely nothing. I am so disgusted with the group. They change policies at a whim and won't budge a bit to help you out. They tell you several different things every time I contact them. Stay away from that group they are not a good group to have to do business with. You will never get any money back from this group.
*** K

This company promises one thing on the phone and that completely goes back on what they say. I was promised a two month rental at one rate and a two month extension at 10% more. Once I agreed and paid for the two month rental, there was no response from the company on the extension. As soon as both months were paid for, they kept calling me and saying it was available, but at a higher rate now.

Then they said it is not available and got angry about their costs. This company is unethical in the way that they approach business. Just read the reviews below.... I am sure that there are 100 more that have not been written. The only good reviews are clearly written by their own people and all on the same day.

The housing is also sub-standard and the internet never worked. Lots of problems, but because we had young kids, we did not want to move them after a traumatic evacuation out of Africa. They would rather just be in one place for four months and that is what I had agreed to before coming to the USA......

Stay away!

In the past, we had rented with this company and had success. Customer service was good, the home was great.. no complaints.

Recently (during the pandemic), we booked a home with this company for two weeks because it was heavily discounted. In the listing, they mentioned there would be a "surcharge for pool heating." Immediately after booking, I requested information on the pool heating fee and they informed me that it would be $4000 to heat the pool for two weeks. I requested cancellation of the reservation that day - within 24 hours of the initial booking request, but they refused to honor it.

I understand that this is a tough time for many businesses, but this is not acceptable behavior.