Hotel wants full upfront payment by bank transfer

[tarantule]

Booking to go away and staying two nights at a small family run hotel. It's peak season. They have asked for full upfront payment by bank transfer, which is not easy to do as it's on a small island in the Caribbean.

We thought we could just pay a deposit by card or on arrival as we usually do in the region.

We said we're happy to pay a deposit of one night and we'll pay cash for the rest when we arrive. But hotel owner is insisting that full payment must be made now. The hotel has a few bad reviews where people say the hotel kept the full balance when they could no longer make it (for a variety of reasons).

Would you do it or not?

How easy is it to find somewhere else?
Its probably kosher and a shame, because as a small business they need to be guaranteed their revenue, but frankly anywhere that is charging £300 a night these days and doesn’t take credit cards is putting themselves out of business.

I pay via bank transfer for things in the Caribbean and it's not hard to do.

A group of us cancelled a holiday in Tobago after we'd paid in full 2-3 years ago. We left the money with them for 6 months in case some could go but a full refund was given when asked for.
If they are an internationally recognised resort then speak to them.
Better to deal with direct.

@BlueFlowers5
How very trusting of you, & how very lucky.

There is zero security in paying by bank transfer, whereas credit card payments are secure if anything goes wrong - & also debit cards to a lesser degree.

Plus the fact they are NOT "an internationally recognised resort ",

I’ve also done that twice for a campsite in Spain. A bit of a pain, you need need to go to the bank with IBAN, the banks address, their residential address etc . But nothing suspicious and they have bad internet on the site which I think could have been the reason.

Bad internet the reason 🤣. Maybe not a scam and avoiding bank fees, but bad internet, no!

They don’t have a payment facility on their website, the owners are elderly, I don’t really know their reasons just that they weren’t out to scam us. The internet really isn’t good, it’s up in the mountains.