New River Retreat

Review: My wife is going into labor at 29-30 weeks. Having been to the hospital twice in the last day, it is logical to cancel my reservation at New River Retreat. While it is last minute, the need is obvious, however they would not refund my payment in full.Desired Settlement: Refund of $364.75

Business

Response:

"It was very unfortunate to hear that this guest was unable to keep his reservation with us due to his wife going into labor. The guest called us the day before his scheduled arrival date to cancel his weekend reservation. Since we know that these types of situations occur, we offer our guests Travel Insurance for the nominal cost of 7% of their stay – the guest chose to decline this insurance. Per the rental agreement between the guest, and us, that we have all our guests sign - our cancellation policy clearly states that we can only refund fees such as the damage deposit fee and cleaning fee in the event of a cancellation within 30 days of arrival (with insurance, he would have received a full refund). We refunded these fees to the guest immediately upon cancellation. As a property management company, we have to look out for the best interest of both our guests and the owners of the properties we rent, which is why we have these policies in our rental agreement in place. There was not enough notice of cancellation given for us to be able to re-rent the property. "

Review: Our family, my wife, my autistic son and myself had made a reservation to stay in one of the cabins this company manages for the week of July 24 - July 29. And we had paid the reservation in full, just over $1081.74. Our family has a great deal of medical expenses between my wife and my son, so we had been saving for almost a year to afford this trip. On July 22nd , I lost my wife to a heart attack (she was only 47 yrs old) and we had been married for 23 years.

I contacted this company to obviously let them know we could not make our reservation. New River Retreat however would not refund my payment. They did refund me some of the deposits and fees, but refused to refund the $700 in actual rental charges. They claim that decision is left to the actual cabin owner, who they will not identify to you , and they let hide behind this curtain of privacy. I have no way of knowing if they ever contact the owner or not.

Then they told me the only way I could be refunded is if they found someone else to rent the cabin on short notice and I watched their website, the cabin showed as being not available 3 of the days I had rented, so I assumed they rented to someone else, but when I contacted New River Retreats, I was told the owner had taken the cabin out of service for those days to do some maintenance, which meant there was no possibility of another rental. They had their money, what did they care ??

So, while I am dealing with trying to plan a funeral for my wife and find a way to pay for it, these people have basically stolen $700 from me and I think it is completely immoral what they have done.Desired Settlement: I would like to be refunded my $700 for rent, or at least refunded for the days they made the cabin unavailable to rent for maintenance.

Business

Response:

It was very unfortunate to hear that this guest was unable to to keep his reservation with us due to his wife's unexpected passing. As a broker between the guests we rent to and the owners of the properties we manage, we have to look out for all parties' best interests. Due to the nature of this cancellation, we made an exception to our cancellation policy, which states that if a cancellation takes place within 30 days of arrival and the guest declined to purchase vacation insurance, we are only able to refund our fees and the rental cost is forfeited. After discussing the situation with the owner of the property, we told the guest that if we were able to re-rent any of the nights he had booked then we would refund him the rental cost for those nights. We tried to promote the nights on our Facebook and our reservationists encouraged potential renters to take the nights. When within 24 of the reservation the nights had not re-rented and chances were that it would not, the owner decided to take down two of the nights in order to do maintenance since it is our peak season and the property is often booked. We strongly encourage our guests to take vacation insurance in the event that the unexpected occurs and we were disappointed that we were unable to re-rent the nights that the guest had to cancel.

Consumer

Response:

have reviewed the response offer made by the business in reference to complaint ID [redacted], and have determined that this proposed action would not resolve my complaint. For your reference, details of the offer I reviewed appear below.They did nothing but respond with the same generic response they give any person who cancels a reservation, to them apparently having your wife of 23 years pass awayis no different than having a car problem or work issues and having to miss your reservation. And the fact that they allow their property owners to hide behind them in these situations.I realize there is nothing I can do, but I continue to use every media source I can to make people aware of how they treat people.

Regards,