Spinnaker's Reach Realty, Inc.

I booked a property, Sunnyside Up, with Spinnaker's late last year (2014), with the intention of sharing the reservation with my two elderly parents for the week of Sept 5-12, 2015. Two payments were made, totaling about $800, and this included trip insurance. As of April 2015, my Mom learned that her hip surgery was going to be delayed, and it was unlikely she would be able to travel from Michigan to make the trip. I promptly notified Spinnaker's, and our two options were to 1) File a trip insurance claim or 2) Wait to see if the property was re-rented during that week. After many conversations with the trip insurance company, it became evident that unless I was a primary caregiver to my Mom (who had the surgery) that I could still make the trip, so insurance would not reimburse what had been paid thus far. So, the only viable option became hoping the property was rented, so in that case, we would be refunded what we had paid, minus a $50 cancellation fee and the trip insurance fee. We had checked the website several times to see if the property had rented after April, and as of July/Aug I called Spinnaker's to ask if they had heard anything more that wasn't showing up. I was told that already is hadn't yet been rented, that a lot of people wait until last minute to make bookings - this had been their experience over the years. Of course this isn't a guarantee, but it made me feel a little better. Then, later in August, I received a text from my Mom that the property must have been rented because it was showing up as 'booked'. I called Spinnaker's a couple of weeks later to ask why a check hadn't yet been issued. Come to find out, the homeowners had blocked off the property - it hadn't actually been rented! And it was 100% up to the homeowners to decide if they would refund the money. Well, one would hope that the homeowners AND Spinnaker's would do the right thing and at least make a partial refund, since when the homeowner blocked off the property, the chance it could be re-rented was exactly zero percent. Let's just say that over this lovely Labor Day week, the homeowners are staying there, whatever percentage of $800 richer. I am sure that this is not the first time this has happened at Spinnaker's...and I am perplexed as to how there is no system in place that disallows a homeowner from blocking a property when a refund is in play (unless they are upfront willing to make the refund). ","neg-1