COVID-19 Related Cancellations

We have an upcoming trip to Aruba. The week was rented through a listing on Redweek and paid for via check directly to the owner. The Marriott property has authorized cancellation due to Aruba banning all inbound international travel. There is no way to get there.

The owner is not responding to our requests for information, guidance, cancellation. Has anyone dealt with this?

timothys142 wrote:

We have an upcoming trip to Aruba. The week was rented through a listing on Redweek and paid for via check directly to the owner. The Marriott property has authorized cancellation due to Aruba banning all inbound international travel. There is no way to get there.

The owner is not responding to our requests for information, guidance, cancellation. Has anyone dealt with this?

A proper rental agreement should include clear and specific written terms and conditions, mutually agreed to in advance by both signatories, addressing cancellations and refunds. Many such agreements very clearly state that there will be no refunds under any circumstances, often even specifically encouraging the prospective tenant to independently purchase trip cancellation insurance.

If you have no formal rental agreement at all, you are essentially subject to the decision and generosity of the owner (who incurs maintenance fee costs, whether that week gets used or not). If you have no executed rental agreement at all, the best you can hope for may be a refund of whatever amount you paid that exceeds the owner's incurred maintenance fee costs for that week. It is certainly not your fault that you cannot get there --- but it's not the owner's fault either. I hope that it ultimately works out to your mutual satisfaction in these difficult times and unusual circumstances.

Thanks for this. -T

Renting through Redweek - question directed to Redweek personnel

1. Does Redweek offer travel insurance to the renter when they collect the rent? I'm thinking of transactions where Redweek collects the rent and later remits to the owner.

2. If insurance is offered, does it cover the renter if they are unable to go to the resort for documented health reasons?

Dennis: Travel insurance is available on all bookings done through RedWeek Online Booking with the following exceptions: the check-in date must be within 18 months, and we currently cannot offer insurance to residents of Hawaii or New York.

The exact policy depends on where you live. Any questions about coverage would need to be answered by CSA/Generali: 866-999-4018.

Hi we also have an upcoming trip to Aruba and are trying to deal with cancelling or possibly rebooking. Mariott really needs to do something here considering the WORLD is basically shut down. If they ever expect to sell more time shares they should figure it out.

timothys142 wrote:

We have an upcoming trip to Aruba. The week was rented through a listing on Redweek and paid for via check directly to the owner. The Marriott property has authorized cancellation due to Aruba banning all inbound international travel. There is no way to get there.

The owner is not responding to our requests for information, guidance, cancellation. Has anyone dealt with this?

Thank you very much. I will do that right now and I appreciate your help.

In spite of what has been inferred above, I cannot reason why/how a renter can withhold funds on a property that cannot physically be accessed or occupied. -Tim

If it is one of the timeshare properties, Marriott is not cancelling the reservation fully. The points or week will go into a bank and have to be used within the year and has a rescheduling issue of can only reschedule 120 days from the stay.

This is all extremely hard on these travel companies. Rumor says BookIt.com has closed its doors and there are some really bad things happening for people due to that.

I am in a similar position, as I booked a week mid-April through a Red week direct booking for Maui (Westin Kaanapali shores) which is very expensive. Now that the Hawaii governor has told people not to travel to Hawaii, and a mandatory travel restriction there appears inevitable, I'm being told by RedWeek that any refunds are at the discretion of the owner, but they have not told me whether owner has responded in any manner to my request for such refund and I have no way to contact the owner directly. On top of that, my wife being pregnant (4.5 months) is considered higher risk for this, so I feel I have no choice but to cancel. If it's completely non-refundable, I feel I at least should have the right to re-sell that week on my own to try to recoup at least a portion of the reservation, but I'm getting no response from RedWeek on that option. Anyone else in similar situation?

Peter: We want you to know we are doing everything we can to encourage the owner of your rental to be as accommodating as possible. We're a pretty small company and are receiving hundreds and hundreds of emails a day.

If you've booked using RedWeek's Online Booking, we ask that you open a dispute for your reservation. This can be done by visiting:

https://www.redweek.com/account/trips?view=all

Once there, locate your booking and select PROBLEM OR QUESTION.

Once your dispute has been entered, the arbitration team will review it as soon as possible, but we do ask that you understand it is a state of emergency and we have so many in our community in the same situation. We are attempting to prioritize by check-in date.

Thank you for your patience and understanding.

Understood, I realize you guys are pretty overwhelmed right now. Just hoping we can reach some middle ground with the owner, so nobody bears the full financial brunt of this nasty epidemic. thanks for responding!

timothys142 wrote:

In spite of what has been inferred above, I cannot reason why/how a renter can withhold funds on a property that cannot physically be accessed or occupied. -Tim

Nothing was "inferred above"; just clear statements of irrefutable facts. For the record, timeshare owners still have to pay maintenance fees for whatever they own, regardless of tenant cancellations or imposed travel restrictions (or any other circumstances). An additional indisputable fact is that there are many different flavors (and chains) of timeshares, with widely different policies regarding reservation bookings and cancellations. For example, an owner of a deeded "fixed" week at an independent (i.e., non-chain) timeshare property owns a specific week in a specific unit and neither the week nor the unit can ever be altered by anyone, including the owner of the interval. There will be a annual maintenance fee bill, whether the unit / week is occupied or not; no flexibility whatsoever exists for deeded fixed week owners.

In the case of "chains" (e.g., Marriott) or "points programs" in other systems (e.g., Wyndham), cancellation policies vary widely among one another. Some reservations can be rescheduled (within certain very specific time frames and generally having to occur before the end of the current year). Yes, there is certainly some flexibility in such arrangements, but many owners are reporting that their would-be tenants don't even want to discuss rescheduling; they just want a 100% refund. An understandable wish perhaps, but any such "100% refund" would leave the owner "100% stiffed" --- completely unacceptable.

Only infrequently do I rent out any of the several timeshare weeks that we own. Fortunately, none recently and none are scheduled. All of our weeks are fixed weeks (as defined above). My rental agreements recommend and strongly encourage that the tenant-to-be acquire trip cancellation insurance, since the agreements clearly state that no refunds will be issued in the event of cancellation --- for any reason. I will say, however, that if any of my rentals were occurring in these unprecedented times and the tenant-to-be could not occupy the rental due to imposed restrictions beyond their control, being human and sympathetic I would voluntarily issue a refund of whatever rental amount exceeded my annual maintenance fee bill --- but no more than that. Personally, I see that as a very reasonable compromise, "sharing" the loss. Others likely see things differently, as is their prerogative.

So....though she has not responded to my emails, my renter wished to cancel for a few reasons. Anyway, I don't know if she is going or not and thus don't know if I should cancel the resort or not. When is the check issued to the owner....the few days after the renter was supposed to go or has to actually check in? Its not the money at this point. Just don't know how to handle this

We booked through RedWeek with a verified Redweek posting, therefore I do not have the owners contact information to reach out to him to see what our options are about our upcoming trip to Hilton Head Island. Because we don't have any of the owner's contact information, I have filed a dispute to ask what our options our since we are 63 days out. I am afraid RedWeek won't get back to me since they are probably overwhelmed by request and are addresses concerns in chronological order by booking date. Wondering how long it takes to get a response back using the Covid-19 dispute form? Thanks for your help.

Redweek did not act in good faith. We rented through Redweek and have followed the Covid 19 situation very closely. We had rented our timeshare through Redweek for the week of 3/21/2020 -3/28/2020 and were expecting a request for cancellation and never received a request. I even checked my email at midnight the night before; had I cancelled by midnight Vistana would have reinstated my points/options with no penalty. I was willing to work with the guest. Instead at 2:00 PM the day of the reservation I received my first contact from Redweek or the guest:

Resort: The Westin Kaanapali Ocean Resort Villas

Check-in: 2020-03-21

A dispute was opened concerning this booking, as permitted by section 2 of the Rental Agreement. The RedWeek arbitration panel has reviewed this case and determined that, due to the ongoing global Covid-19 pandemic, the rental unit is not habitable. Per section 2 of the Rental Agreement, therefore, the panel has found in favor of the renter, and will be issuing them a refund. We are sorry this booking did not work out as planned. These are unprecented times and we appreciate your understanding in this matter. Sincerely, RedWeek.com Customer Service

Had I been asked even 14 hours earlier I would have been satisfied because I could have cancelled my reservation.

Redweek did not act in good faith.

Vistana will also allow owners to transfer into Interval International. (We are Westin Owners.)

Peter, Redweek opened and closed a dispute on the day of arrival without contacting me as an owner; they said they were refunding the guests the full amount. If I had been contacted the night before, I would have cancelled my booking with the Westin for the guests and agreed to the refund. As it stands now I am out my maintenance fees and my ownership usage. Westin/Vistana is accepting cancellations up to Midnight EST the night before check-in.

I own 6 weeks at the Westin in Maui and rent 2-3 weeks every year on Redweek. NO Longer

REDWEEK DID NOT ACT IN GOOD FAITH

Wow! Elizabeth and Mark, I would certainly be upset as well if I was in your shoes. Seems RedWeek could offer a bit more transparency for the 'verified' reservations, and allow an open channel of communications between owner and renter to see what options could be worked out. My reservation is April 17 at Westin Maui Kaanapali, and I certainly don't want the owner put in your place if they aren't provided enough notice to re-arrange things. We love this resort in Maui, so would jump at choice to be able to defer the reservation for one year.

With the mandatory 14-day quarantine in place for arrivals into Hawaii, I don't see how any of these reservations can proceed.

We can understand the frustration by both owners and renters. This pandemic is like nothing we have ever had to deal with, and we continue to improve our processes as we go along. We currently have thousands of calls and emails and are handling everything as fast as we can. It’s an incredibly difficult time for the entire nation and we hope our RedWeek community will be patient and understanding as we get through this together. We will absolutely respond to everyone just as soon as possible.