To ask the capable women of Mumsnet for holiday disaster advice

[CreteTragedy]

On holiday in Crete and it’s all been a bit of a nightmare so far. Less than 20 minutes after leaving the airport, I had an accident in the car hire vehicle swerving to avoid an oncoming scooter. It ended up in the vehicle needing to be recovered and a €140 taxi journey to our accommodation 90 minutes away. We arrived at 4am and were scrabbling around on the mountain in the dark trying to find the right villa. We almost let ourselves into another villa until we noticed the drying swimsuits outside.

I’m on day 3 of the 10 day holiday, and it’s apparent we won’t be able to stay here without a car. It’s a 40 minute walk up the mountain away from the town. We did a taxi trip on the first morning for groceries, but the taxi had no seatbelts. I felt awful for allowing my 12 year old son to ride without a seatbelt but felt I had little other options at the time.

The car hire company aren’t being very responsive. I’ve got a police accident and other paperwork, ready to start their accident process but so far, have not had the promised call back from the ‘manager’. I’d need to give them another €1500 damage deposit and travel back to their offices 90 minutes away to collect a replacement vehicle. I’m reluctant to authorise any more charges to my card until I know the extent of the original liability. I took out indemnity insurance separately but I’ll need to pay any cost up front. I emailed my insurer yesterday to start the paper trail.

The accommodation hosts haven’t been very helpful and just sent links to car hire companies. I haven’t seen them or heard from the at all in person. AirBnB have been better and are offering to cancel and refund unused nights. I’m checking if they can book a property that has availability now.

As it’s just me and my 12 year old, I’m struggling to keep it together. I feel isolated in the mountains without a car and I’m worried about the liability from the accident.

When you say “you don’t want to tie up another 1500”. Do you mean you don’t have it or you don’t want to? If it’s as you say the latter, personally I’d just get over that and do it to salvage my holiday. Moving is going to take more time and hassle during your trip. I’d just suck up the temporary cost and get another hire car from another company.

I have the ability to pay for another damage excess to be held, but I’m not sure that’s a good thing to do given that I don’t know the extent of the original costs I’m accruing from the accident. The holiday itself is ruined. If going home were straightforward, I think I would have already booked flights but flight availability is limited and wouldn’t get me home until Monday earliest. Similarly with moving costs, I’m still at the AirBnB as they haven’t yet confirmed that I’m okay to cancel the remaining nights and rebook elsewhere. I feel like it’s throwing good money after bad at this point, and I’m just focusing on limiting the extent to which I’ll be out of pocket when I return home. Despite having all kinds of travel insurance in place, this has turned out just to be a big costly mistake.

I can’t add to comments about the car- poor you- but can confirm Chania town is very well served by public transport.

I do have Collision Damage Waiver, and I think the excess will be recoverable under the indemnity policy. Less clear is the exclusions under CDW, like the recovery and damage to the tyres. The front offside tyre was significantly damaged in the collision, and was preventing the car from manoeuvring, which was the main factor for the roadside recovery. There’ll also be various admin charges for processing the claim etc.

I'd just stay where you are and use taxis, maybe not every day. Reframe the sort of holiday you are going to have, more relaxing at the villa rather than out and about.

Greeks are very helpful on the whole, someone will help you find a reliable taxi driver who has seat belts.

As I said before if you cancel and are refunded the owner of your villa will not get paid. Seems pretty unfair on them. I certainly wouldn't be happy to lose that amount of money through no fault of my own.

Just read this thread. What a nightmare. I def reopmmend finding somewhere else to move to in Chania or Rethymnon. Maybe a small friendly hotel, rather than a villa. Both lovely places, that you can do bus trips from. Driving through the mountains from North to South is very scary and bikers are maniacs there. Just glad you aren't hurt.

How about booking into somewhere like this, it may not work out much more money than getting taxis everywhere?

I think if the host or even the travel company had reached out to us, to help then staying would work. As it is, all we’ve had are standard messages from the travel company on the AirBnB messaging platform. They know we had on the accident on the way to the villa, and no one has even called to check that we’re okay. The only local information provided is a generic webpage and there’s one leaflet here from the taxi firm we’ve used. The taxi driver has actually been more accessible and has established ongoing messages on WhatsApp. He’s messaged this morning wanting to confirm if we need transport to Chania today. This feels more like a rental appartment than AirBnB, far more impersonal.

This is where my head is at now and I have a few options for Chania that look feasible. I can’t stay here trapped in the villa for 6 more days. It’s only me and my son so there’s no adult conversation, I’ve already read the two novels I brought and I’m starting to feel restless. Years ago when my son was born, I hated being trapped in the house before I could drive and this feels exactly like that : dependent on other people even to get groceries.

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.

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

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?

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!

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.

CreteTragedy
Did you decide to move to different accommodation?

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

@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?

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

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’m just about to head off for a hotel and try to salvage the last few days. It also looks likes the owner won’t lose out as the cleaner is here doing a turn around for new guests. I think it may even work out better for them as I booked midweek to midweek leading some straggling days over the weekend. I think they’ve now managed to book a full week.

Thanks for all the advice. I think I assumed a lot based on last year’s experience which in hindsight I’d make sure to book a ‘superhost’/concierge package in future. Hopefully the insurance and Airbnb refunds will kick in after I’m home so I’m not too out of pocket!