To ask the capable women of Mumsnet for holiday disaster advice

Couldn’t agree more . Poor OP , trying to have a holiday with her son . Sounds like she spent a lot of money .
Is on her own ( no other adult ) and has had an accident in a different country and a few people are just being plain nasty !!!
OP I think you sound brilliant and are doing your very best . Crete is stunning , Chania particularly so .
I really hope you can work something out to enjoy the rest of what should be a break ❤️!

That's a happy update! Have a fabulous time at your hotel and enjoy the rest of your holiday. Agree with above advice re. superhost - the Rhodes experience you had isn't really a box to be ticked on Airbnb as the vast majority just rent the properties and at most would leave you some biscuits, not get involved (and indeed most guests wouldn't want the hosts being that involved). But anyway, glad you've sorted it for now!

Good tgat they havent lost financially.

Superhost doesnt mean what you think it does. It just means your review score is over 4.8, your response rate is over 90% and you have hosted more than 10 stays.

What you need to be looking for is 'private host' ie an individial as opposed to a 'business host'.

I hope you have a fab last few days of your holiday, I think a hotel is a good idea.

You are on a Greek island, there are car hires every few hundred yards and most of these don’t take a huge deposit. They aren’t like the big hire companies. Have you been into one to see what they’d charge?

We never ever use the big companies when in Greece, the little companies are a million times better and usually don’t put massive holds on your credit card.

Congrats on getting the damage waiver separately, I have had to claim on this in the past and was well worth it. Enjoy the rest of your holiday in Chania! It’s all good experience for the future and you’ve handled yourself brilliantly. See it as proof you can deal with setbacks rather than a holiday disaster.

I do think your Rhodes experience was very unusual. Best to let go of expecting Airbnb owners to reach out and check you’re okay. They rent properties through a website as a business, they’re not kindly personal hosts who really care about you. A list of links to local car hire firms is all I’d expect to get, not for them to step up and be helping me more than that. If they’re willing to let you cancel without penalty, I’d take that as a win and get yourself to a hotel for the rest of your stay then use public transport.

I burst a tyre in France one year and the excess insurance covered it fully so yours might be okay too.

@ShanghaiDiva Op said it wasn’t a budget holiday! She said it was expensive. I asked about this pages ago. I’ve said, previously, to hire another car or move. Many others have said exactly the same.

However surely the op (and possibly others) need to learn from this? Flight time and driving at night in unfamiliar countries are obvious learning points. Plus abta and what a “package” holiday actuality is in law. She also thought the airbnb host should offer a consierge service and didn’t understand her car insurance. All future learning points. Sorry if it comes across as harsh but it’s all worth thinking about. At the moment her options are limited so what else can be said?

The excess will be the total amount you are liable for. So if the original excess is £1500, that’s the max you will pay. You can then claim most of it back via your separate insurance. Yes, it’s slower and you do have to wait but it will work. Have you hired via a chain or via a local place?

We’ve had accidents in hire cars before and the process has always worked smoothly, even if we did have to carry the excess on a credit card until our separate insurance paid out. So if I were you I’d be confident to book another hire car, if only to salvage something of the holiday.

Good luck, you can do this.

Oh hell, what a palaver and a stress. Reading your OP made me feel angsty enough before I even realised you were on your own with it all. You poor woman, not what you want on holiday with a child at all.
I really hope you can pull it back and relax into your time away.

A car accident is upsetting enough in your own country in your own language. I think you're amazing having dealt with that in a foreign country in the dark when you've just arrived. And you're the only adult.

If you can afford to book a more central hotel in Chania for the last few days then do that and enjoy the rest of your holiday. It's not what you planned but you can enjoy it all the same.

I do think though that your expectations of your air bnb host are a bit unrealistic. You clearly got very lucky last time. I don't think that's normal. I've rarely even met our hosts / owners in the past.

Air BnB won't reimburse the host. The host will lose the money and be out of pocket. Air BnB have the money and simply won't pay the owner for the stay. That's how it works.

I'm genuinely wanting to know why you believe the owner of the villa should lose their payment for this week because their guest had a car accident ( not their fault) and the car hire company were rubbish ( not their fault) Why is the villa owner the person who should lose out financially?

OP I think people on here are being unnecessarily harsh. You’ve done everything right, it is a lot of money. I’m a single parent who does a lot of adventurous travel and you will always have moments where you feel you are putting your child at risk perhaps.
Once we were due to get a ferry from one port to another, the ferry couldn’t sail due to weather so we had to get a 7 hour coach. It arrived into the next city at 2am. We were waking around the city at 2am trying to find our air BnB. Police picked us up and drove us there, think they thought I was a refugee.
Basically the holiday experience for single women with/without children is completely different to heterosexual couples. Many places, even in Europe, are still very sexist. I often wish there were more influencer/ travel journalists who portrayed the reality. Not just beaches and kids smiling at view points but stuff like ‘we had to leave the restaurant as the waiter started harassing me’ or ‘got lost in Rome and my phone got stolen by a man who I asked for directions’. Real stuff like that.
It’s up to air BnB to reimburse your host. You need to move to Chania and get some part of your holiday back.

I am sorry about your car accident, but surprised about your airbnb expectations. I wouldn’t expect a host to become involved in my personal issues, they aren’t travel reps. I think your previous stay was unusual.

CreteTragedy
Did you decide to move to different accommodation?

Air BnB is just an advertising website. All sorts of people/ businesses advertise on it. If the owner has outsourced to an agency they will have hundreds of properties.

Why the interrogation. You have been rude in your responses to the op - obviously a budget holiday/ why didn’t you do this/ should have done that/ you selected flights at an inappropriate time…
Do you believe this is in any way helpful to the op’s current situation?
Op had an accident in the car, it happens and she is posting for advice not a detailed analysis of every single thing she has (in your opinion) done wrong!

Re the holding of a second 1.5k for another car... does it really matter how much the accident cost you? You can't change that, meanwhile you do need a car. You'd be very unlucky to get into a second accident so you would get the second 1.5k back?

You know people can have accidents in the day time too? Not sure why you’re being so hostile to the OP, she obviously means the travel company who are managing this villa on airb&b as part of their portfolio. She mentioned it earlier, you even (haughtily) responded to her 😂

OP - the 1k excess is completely standard in Europe and you did the right thing getting the indemnity. Good decision, it should hopefully be mostly covered.

As for not driving at night or slogging 2.5 hours to Gatwick simply to avoid it, bollocks to that. You can have an accident anytime, it’s just unfortunate and luckily nobody was hurt.

On this occasion I’d cut my losses and take airb&b’s word for it that they will refund the last few days and move to a hotel in Chania.

Good luck

What travel company? Is this a package or not? Why should the host solve your problems? They have provided the accommodation you booked. You are just going to have to spend the money on a car or somewhere else. Annoying it definitely is and the roadside assistance will be down to you but the route and night driving wasn’t sensible. It’s poor planning and flight times not being suitable for the holiday you wanted.