Originally Posted by
silverlim
After firing dozen of nasty emails to CBR, finally a resident manager not even the GM have the courtesy to call me to discuss about a "solution". He lied that they were trying to call me a week earlier to notify of the buyout which is not true. I only find out through my virtuoso agent. I wanted to be re-accomodated to Soneva Jani but they were full. They suggest O&O or Velaa which I am not fond of. Asking to cover accomdation, full board and round trip sea plane transfer to resort , and the manager said I was asking too much , am I really?
It doesn't really matter if he called you a week earlier or not. I still think that 3 weeks before a trip is
not acceptable. Given their behaviour so far it may be necessary to be very direct.
Have you asked him why they decided to walk you? It will make it very uncomfortable for him to admit they're doing it for financial reasons. Secondly, it will also introduce into the conversation that you know the resort is being handsomely remunerated for doing so which then gives you leverage to expect compensation commensurate to the level of inconvenience. If they believe that terminating a contract at this very late stage is only going to result in them having to return what they've already taken then they're very naive. What is more likely the case is that they're testing to see whether you will accept their offer without much fuss. Some people probably would.
Make it clear that should they fail to resolve the situation adequately that your next steps will be:
1) To complain directly to corporate
2) To inform your credit card company of the situation
3) Share this information including emails and details of conversations with the media
4) Raise the issue at a very high level with Virtuoso
5) That you will share your experience of the property very widely within the luxury travel community
It then depends on how forward thinking the GM is and whether he's willing to damage the resort's reputation when the problem can be made to go away by adequately compensating you.
Good luck.