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Booked two villas via OTA (ebookers) as acceptable Avios 8/£1 return. Hotel contacted me direct offering their own quotes, but it was only $300 less per villa with a Christmas brunch & 10min dive thrown in. I have two questions:
1. Planning to ask 12% off room rate with a few proper dives thrown in for booking direct. Does 12% sound about right as never negotiated with hotel direct?
2. All prices in $ so can use free FX CC with 0.5% cash back and will pay each Villa separately not to exceed S75 limit. Would be happier using Curve/Barclay avios for more points…. Any pitfalls with relying on Curve own protection scheme?
- This topic was modified 55 years, 4 months ago by .
The key thing I’d be checking is to make sure that it is indeed a genuine message from the hotel.
Not some phishing scam from their hacked email system.
@Gary if the s75 protection is important to you, booking via an OTA may break the creditor/supplier link, so may not apply. It’s rather contentious and leads to many disputes. You would still be covered for a chargeback, but that is a less powerful tool.
Also you mention two villas – assuming the second is for dependants that is fine, if it were for friends, s75 is a bit grey.
The hotel will be paying the OTA 15-20% and can often be slow payers so you have quite a bit to play with and to the extent that there are extras you would like, particularly ones that are valuable to you but have little marginal cost for the hotel to provide, ask for them. As it’s Xmas, they may be a bit less amenable, but as they approached you, there must be some good flex.
- This reply was modified 55 years, 4 months ago by .
“Dear hotel
Many thanks for your email. It’s certainly an interesting offer that I’m considering but would you be wiling to include X and / or Y as it would help my decision making.
Luv and kisses”
12% is a strange discount to ask for though. Do you have some rational for that figure? Is it some sort of compensating for the lost ebookers avios and back cash?
Plus can you actually cancel the ebookers booking?
Thank you all. Booking is refundable, and 12% just seemed reasonable at the time for lost points. Helpful to know OTA takes a more significant cut so am adjusting my starting point.
@JDB The 2nd villa is for a friend & his family. Would you mind elaborating why S75 is grey here? My main intention is to streamline communication/logistics to avoid any cross wiring especially with seaplanes/restaurant bookings to coordinate later on. Obviously I would get some points which our friend has no interest in, but not end of the world if it’s advisable to use his own card instead.The 2nd villa is for a friend & his family. Would you mind elaborating why S75 is grey here? My main intention is to streamline communication/logistics to avoid any cross wiring especially with seaplanes/restaurant bookings to coordinate later on. Obviously I would get some points which our friend has no interest in, but not end of the world if it’s advisable to use his own card instead.
Not an expert on this, but I remember reading that the card owner must also be the consumer of the good / service. One of the reasons even supplementary card holders don’t get the S75 cover.
- This reply was modified 55 years, 4 months ago by .
@Gary it’s grey because while s75 doesn’t clarify the issue, including re supplementary shareholders, cases have been decided that the relationship required to trigger s75 is only direct debtor-creditor ones, so that a purchase via a travel agent or on a supplementary card or for a third party breaks the chain.
I recall a villa owner on TripAdvisor saying that booking dot com take 40%
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