Villas Abroad

Taken the plunge and have booked with this company who have bought out bits of Open Holidays, we hummed and ayed a bit but as we like to stay right on the Pine Walk we didn't really have a choice, we got the same apartment we have booked with Open for Aug 07 at the same price, the company seem very efficient, only time will tell. Got flights direct with First Choice £80 cheaper for next year than this year. Paid for everything on our credit cards, so if the worse happens next year and we have no where to stay at least we will have some money to go and buy a tent with!!

Just done the same thing, next year will be our 6th year at Cala San Vicente so we are hoping Villas Abroad are as good as Open were. Apartment and flights worked out £75 less than last year which can't be bad.

Hi, we want to book with them for 2007, can you tell me which apartments you stayed at and what they were like...thanks, any info would be greatly appreciated

Sorry about the delay been overseas. We've always stayed at the Pinos Altos apartments, which are geared towards family's with younger children as is the area generally. The apartments are not large but were always well presented under open holiday management and hopefully will continue to be under villas abroad. One real bonus is the large swimming pool.

[pollensa]

These may be the same Pinos Altos apts here - you get some info if you click on the hoeseasons link:
www.puertopollensa.com/hotels_calasanvicente.html#CSVApartments They also have Ca'n Botana in CSV.

At Christmas this year we booked the same apartment as we did in 2006 through Villas Abroad. As others have said it was Open Holidays/Marfran in 2006. It cost us about €700 (£1100) more for a week later in May 2007 than in May 2006. Flights from Dublin are also up €200 as well...so all in all its working out a lot dearer >D
Anyway a few weeks after I paid the initial deposit in December we received no confirmation in writing or email that the deposit had been received or holiday booked. I had booked the holiday and paid the deposit over the phone. So I chased them and after a while we got a letter confirming our deposit & booking and that the balance was due in March. They also stated that we would receive a reminder of the outstanding balance.
We received absolutely no correspondence from the company since receiving this booking confirmation.

Today my wife (who didnt book the holiday) received a letter, dated 6th March, saying that the balance was overdue and that if it was not paid within 6 days we would lose our holiday and deposit. Today is the 12th so technically the deadline has passed. Also if we did pay before the deadline there was still an £80 penalty for being late with the balance:lol >:

I'm a calm person....but i found it difficult to remain calm when on the phone to the company this morning. It clearly states in clause 11 on the back of our confirmation of deposit notice that we would be sent a reminder before the balance was due....we did not receive this. Villas Abroad were kind enough to cut the "penalty" in half as it wasnt on "our systems" if this reminder had been sent to us. I was NOT sent.
They eventually agreed to drop the penalty but it took at least half an hours heated discussion.
Now I realise that this is not a major thing and I may be making a bit of a meal of it. But someone may of been caught out and paid this £80. I felt it was worth mentioning to others in case it happens again. I really got the impression that they were hoping to catch us out, that we would forget (as we did) when the exact date that the balance was due was (which by the way was the 3rd of March). In fact as they wrote to us on the 6th, being 3 days late was going to cost us £80 :eek
Anyway I paid the balance ( but no penalty!) and am looking forward to May. I just hope that we dont need Villas Abraod for anything (other than to collect the keys) when we get to PP as their customer service is not what one would expect.
Killian :rolleyes

We paid exactly the same for this year with Villas Abroad as what we were going to pay with Open when we paid our deposit last year (before they went bust). Doesn't 700 euros convert to £500 we were also lucky when booking our flights in October we got them nearly £90 cheaper than last year.

We have just returned from Pinos Altos having booked a last minute short break with Villas Abroad. We know the apartments fairly well and was pleasently surprised to find that they have been tarted up and now reflect good value for money as they were starting to look a bit tired under Open holidays. The only complant we would have if you could call it that was that the pool was freezing.
Villas Abroad dealt with our lasr minute break very well and we have just payed for our July/August holiday with no problems, just one thing don't book car hire with them as the firm is off airport and a bus ride away.