I wish these people would just never go on holiday!!

[Brightlightmoon]

This is just a rant. I'm so sick of people!

I work in tourism (holiday rentals) and I'm sick of (unfortunately, mainly Brits) threatening legal action for absolutely EVERYTHING!

They book a property without aircon, it doesn't say anywhere on the listing that there's aircon nor have they mentioned any desire for aircon. They arrive, notice there's no air con and go fucking ape shit, threatening us in emails and text messages and phone calls, demanding all of their money back immediately or they're going to drag us through the courts. Same situation for anything else you can imagine - a washing machine breaks during their holiday (it happens, they don't break down on a schedule!), so they deem the property to be unfit for rental and not in line with the advertisement. We try and arrange for it to be fixed or for a new one to be fitted as soon as possible, but if we can't have it all done and dusted within half a day of their complaint, in come the threats and demands for full repayment.

I love my job, I love it so much, but fucking hell this type of shit gets to me.

Ok people shouldn’t shout at you and understand that sometimes things go wrong.
However in their defence I have noticed rental prices have doubled since Covid and inflation hasn’t gone up that much, so there is an element of the property owners trying to make a big profit.
You then have to add on unreasonable expectations by owners re cleaning etc (see current thread re rubbish).
As a result I don’t stay in self catering any more, it’s not really any cheaper than a hotel and you end up spending all holiday cleaning to unrealistic expectations.

I fully get your points but things are a little bit different where I am (France). We've discouraged owners from raising their prices and when they do, they realise they don't get any bookings and thus lower them again. The main issue is that they want us to advertise their properties on websites like Airbnb, but they don't realise/care that Airbnb's charges are MASSIVE. As a business, we've literally lowered our own commission just so that the villas aren't too expensive, so we do really try but the big companies are really taking over and changing the game now.

I read in shock that in the UK you're paying a cleaning fee and then being told to clean the property anyway! I don't understand why anyone would agree to that. Every single property we rent out has a cleaning fee and all we ask from guests is to not leave the dishwasher full and to pop the bins outside the door in the wheelie bin. Some people choose to clean and some don't, but regardless it's all cleaned again anyway because we can't trust that guests cleaning standards are the same as ours.

I think the rental market is struggling at the moment, to be honest, expectations from clients are WAY too high, owners are acting entitled and some companies are raising prices as well. Companies like ours are just kind of stuck in the middle trying to do the fairest thing but it's going completely unappreciated.

@Brightlightmoon it's actually France where I have experienced being expected to have cleaned an apartment, whilst simultaneously having paid a decent amount of what is allegedly a cleaning fee. Whereas I find British rental properties are usually a lot clearer and more reasonable around cleaning expectations.

This has been in ski apartments both times, so maybe they are a special case.

Some people have lost (or never had) the ability to deal with normal life. They always need to blame someone for totally normal life happenings. Guaranteed they'd be moaning if the travel industry stops providing services because nobody wants to deal with such inept aresholes at work.

This is my MIL.

Holiday, day out, meal, shopping....all an opportunity to complain and get a discount.

She is back a week from her summer hols and already has her complaints in to 'see what she can get'.

My Mum and Dad moan about every.single.bit of their holidays but they only complain to me,which is better for the poor customer service staff but shit for me. I can hardly deal with their moaning OP so I don't envy you for having hundreds of people to deal with.

Isn't part of this job that you love dealing with people's complaints? It would be nicer to dump all the things we don't like about work and only do the fun stuff but I haven't found a job like that yet.

Some people have valid complaints and some people don't. It's your job and mine at work, to decide which is which and resolve the valid ones and politely but firmly shut down the rest. Sometimes it takes time and sometimes people aren't sufficiently grateful for what we've done but it's pointless dwelling on that.

In my private life I have been complaining about something for six weeks now. I'm sure the people I call every week think I'm a moany old cow but I just want them to do what they said. I haven't demanded my money back, I only wanted them to sort it,, but I have reached that point today. That is not unreasonable.

In my experience people don't complain enough. Occasionally I've thought: "We've dodged a bullet there. I've mollified her and she has no idea that if she complained to the independent body controlling our industry we'd be in a bit of a pickle. I must remember to ask the fuckwit who treated her like that not to do that again."

Luckily it doesn't happen that often and it's not my job to tell people they have a valid complaint against my employer but to sort it out so they go away happy.

If a holiday let didn't specify air conditioning I would assume it didn't have it and book somewhere else. If I liked the look of the place I'd email on the off chance that it did and you'd forgotten to say. I hope that's not too much trouble.

@rookiemere Ah maybe then, I'm in the summer rentals business and don't deal with ski apartments. The norm for us is very much "don't let the guests clean!"

Of course, it's part of the job, but so is complaining about it when it gets to August and you've been threatened for the 200th time, unfortunately. The tricky thing is, that the person complaining about the 3 leaves in the pool think they're just as correct as the person complaining about the fact there's no running water at all. Sadly, the former is also the type of person to scream down the phone at you, call you a pathetic excuse for a human and that they're taking you to the cleaners.

To me, there's a big difference between complaints and feedback. We get plenty of feedback, both positive and negative, no issues with that and I always ask people to ask as many questions as they wish. Whether a complaint is valid or not, I deal with it as best I can, big or small, my issue is with the people who get rude, angry and aggressive, no matter what the "issue" is.

The only time Ive complained in a rental was when there was no longer hot water. We waited 24hrs to check we hadn't just emptied the tank before signaling it. They fixed it within half a day and reimbursed me some money when I hadn't asked for anything (but very appreciated cos it was a pain showering/washing up in cold water when it was 10 degrees outside). It stopped again the next day and they fixed it again quickly and gave us more money off!

Problems happen but I couldn't fault their reaction and left them a very good review.

I think a lot of people have overinflated expectations

Found one of your customers, op.

I completely agree OP about those people who seem to feel they are only complaining if they shout, scream, belittle you, demand to speak to a manager etc etc.

Complain by all means, but do it politely.

In a former role I was fair more likely to go above and beyond if I experienced some basic courtesy.

Dancingbarbiehouse 100%. I've moved mountains for clients with the teeniest tiniest pathetic complaints because they've been polite, understanding and realistic and they've often got some free wine out of the situation as well. Nowadays I just hang up when someone starts yelling at me/insulting me and won't talk to them until they're calm. I'm a bee that can be easily caught with a little honey!

I love a holiday rental! Spent a marvellous fortnight in a villa in Provence. We had visiting cats, weird rubbish rules, mismatched crockery and cutlery and no steak knives, a pool alarm with a mind of its own, a tricky washing machine.

Fortunately we are all practical, steak knives were purchased, rubbish was dealt with. We found instructions for the washing machine and pool alarm. All was well.

But I suppose we are more used to campsites so having our own pool and washing machine is still exciting!

I feel like after covid people think the world owes them something, especially when it comes to holidays! Everything must be perfect, upgraded and magical.

I'm very laid back but find that listing are increasingly over ambitious. I just came back from a "fully equipped kitchen". There was 1 fork, 5 random plates, 4 tiny glasses and a massive stock pot. The managers response was that "you could spend £50 for the things you need . We travel very light so a washing machine is really important, was annoyed that there was no machine in our apartment (as listed) but a shared one on the terrace. I had to get up at 6am to make sure I got my clothes washed. I didn't complain but wrote about it in the reviews. I would very much expect a washing machine to be fixed on the same day or my clothes taken away and washed, vIm paying for the accommodation after all.

We've come to be a ridiculous society who thinks every problem is someone else's fault and everything has a simple solution.

I use to work in the holiday business.

I had one family want to keep their room on until 1am the following day (iyswim?) but they had people arriving that evening approx 10pm.

Me and hotel tried everything. Keep room until 6pm when dinner starts (not good enough and refused to accept it cost.)
Free use of a card room for the group which closed it for other guests from 6pm or from 11am checkout. Bedding so they could sleep on there before leaving.

Basically they wanted their room until they left. Nothing else.

In the end I said short of building an extra hotel room to accommodate their demands and the people who had booked the room what did they suggest?

I'd also had all the threats about personally suing me blah blah blah. I didn't even work for the hotel! I worked for a holiday company!

When I got the complaint through from UK about it I added 2 sentences.

Yes I said that - I accept it wasn't necessarily the best way - feel free to offer and arrange training for me.
Oh, and the guests were kicked out of the hotel 3 days before they were due to leave for pinning me up against the wall and threatening to kick the baby inside of me out. Actually they left themselves before the police got involved and they were made to leave as requested and we don't know where they went - funny they didn't mention that?!

Id be thrilled...i love cats.

I've been screwed over by holiday lets, to be honest if something goes wrong now, I'm a nuisance until it's fixed.
I paid top money for a quite unique rental for New Year once. There was a power cut, which was quite fun, we got some candles and got on with it.
However it knocked out the boiler, there was ZERO information on how to fix it. We went without hot water and heat for 2 days until the agent and the owner FINALLY talked us through it. The owner complained that they were on holiday. (yeah.. so are we surprisingly... 🙄)
We pretty much lost our 2 days as we were so cold we stayed in bed. NYE we went to bed at 9pm.
We were offered a shitty hamper with shitty Chutney in it to make amends.
Like I said. I'm now a pain in the arse until things are sorted. I don't accept food as compensation either.

Re the washing machine, it depends entirely where you are. We're in rural Southern France where everything just "stops" in August, for the entirety of August, so getting a washing machine same day isn't viable this late in the season. Trust me, I would try absolutely everything up to unhooking my own in my own house and dragging it to the villa, but even that wouldn't be good enough for some of our guests, they'd want a new one. People want "serene Southern France countryside" in the middle of nowhere and then complain when everything is a 30-minute drive away and closed on a Monday - well, yes, everything everywhere is closed on a Monday around here, it's to be expected.

Itsgettingweird Fucking hell, that's absolutely awful. I hope those guests to shitty experiences everywhere they went as some karma for them, what utter dicks.

Exactly this. Also, if a washing machine is included, it should work.

What if the washing machine does work, but breaks on day 3 of your stay? That's no one's fault, things break sometimes and we can't anticipate when that is.

Right, I've seen your update, rural Southern France doesn't operate the same way re: washing machines. Ok.
I think it's how people are approaching the problems, isn't it?
There's a woman on another thread who has paid £10k for a week in Greece and it sounds awful! I wouldn't blame her for getting cross, but courtesy is important.

I've just come back from a holiday. I'm not exaggerating, there were people in the hotel who spent all their time moaning and joyfully listing complaints about the tiniest things with the aim of getting compensation. Several of them. It was draining. I've seen it before but it's getting worse.

Of course it should work, but this thread is about the differnce between

"Hi I'm afarid the washing machine appears to have stopped working. Do you think there's anything you can do"

and

"We were told there would be a washing machine but this one doesn't work. I demand a full refund for the whole holiday immediatly, a replacement washing machine here tomorrow and all our clothes laundered"

You're right, and in your update I've seen that it's not the same kind of service as in the UK. As long as you were polite and informative, it should be fine. Annoying of course, but fine.