Established in 1984, James Villa Holidays is the leading villa tour operator in the UK. With James still at the helm, we pride ourselves on offering you handpicked, quality accommodation, at an affordable price. Our dedicated and specialised team is here to offer you the service you expect from a company which is arranging your all-important holiday for you.
Reviews (8)
Constantinos
May 30, 2022
Alejandro Kruger
Sep 12, 2021
A very bad experience, haven't feel scammed so badly like this in a long time. Asking for a reaction on our complaints (see below) has resulted in exactly zero response after 4 weeks. Strongly recommend not to book through this organisation. Dear James Villa Team, I am writing to inform you of a very poor experience we've had with an accommodation we booked through James Villa and to request a partial refund on our payment.
We booked an accommodation through James Villa in June. The booking was for 28 days staring with the 17th of July. The cost of the accommodation was ca. GBP 10k. The property was so completely out of line with our expectations that having paid for nearly a month, we have spent a total of five nights there. The word "villa" is quite overstated here.
This is a modest house. It is meant to accommodate six people but in reality it provides sleeping room for six. The living / dining area is certainly not large enough for a group of six. The kitchen is very poorly equipped and not properly cleaned. Our oven was covered in grease. The wifi connection was extremely poor. The entire time we were there, we managed to connect twice and even then, it would take 2-3 minutes to load a page.
This was highly inconvenient given the fact that both my wife and I were working during our stay at the house. The house itself had no laundry facilities. Guests are expected to use a common laundry area. I suppose we could have deduced that from the description on your site but having paid more than GBP 350 per night, we would have expected a better arrangement.
We decided to look for a different accommodation, which as you can imagine was not easy to do on short notice in high season. While we were looking, we spent nights away in hotels, basically paying for two accommodations at the same time. We were finally able to find an alternative and left the house yesterday. The management on site was very friendly and receptive to our comments but there is little they can do. Ultimately, you need to reconsider the price point for this place.
As I said, this is a very basic accommodation for which you are charging 4-5 star prices, raising a certain level of expectations with your potential guests which you are ultimately not able to meet. Given that we returned the property after only 10 days of stay, I don't think it is appropriate for us to have to pay for more than two weeks in total. Please let me know how you'd like to proceed. Regards,
We booked an accommodation through James Villa in June. The booking was for 28 days staring with the 17th of July. The cost of the accommodation was ca. GBP 10k. The property was so completely out of line with our expectations that having paid for nearly a month, we have spent a total of five nights there. The word "villa" is quite overstated here.
This is a modest house. It is meant to accommodate six people but in reality it provides sleeping room for six. The living / dining area is certainly not large enough for a group of six. The kitchen is very poorly equipped and not properly cleaned. Our oven was covered in grease. The wifi connection was extremely poor. The entire time we were there, we managed to connect twice and even then, it would take 2-3 minutes to load a page.
This was highly inconvenient given the fact that both my wife and I were working during our stay at the house. The house itself had no laundry facilities. Guests are expected to use a common laundry area. I suppose we could have deduced that from the description on your site but having paid more than GBP 350 per night, we would have expected a better arrangement.
We decided to look for a different accommodation, which as you can imagine was not easy to do on short notice in high season. While we were looking, we spent nights away in hotels, basically paying for two accommodations at the same time. We were finally able to find an alternative and left the house yesterday. The management on site was very friendly and receptive to our comments but there is little they can do. Ultimately, you need to reconsider the price point for this place.
As I said, this is a very basic accommodation for which you are charging 4-5 star prices, raising a certain level of expectations with your potential guests which you are ultimately not able to meet. Given that we returned the property after only 10 days of stay, I don't think it is appropriate for us to have to pay for more than two weeks in total. Please let me know how you'd like to proceed. Regards,
Mark John
May 22, 2021
I'd just like to thank James Villas for the way they've handled the cancellation of our holiday. They explained the deails around having to pay the deposit and gave me a written guarantee explaining cancellations etc. 1 month before our holiday I received an email with a choice of credit + 10% or our money back. I opted for the money back option and these were credited back within 15 working days, exactly as had been promised. We will definately be using you for our next Villa holiday and you're a great example to other travel companies of how to deal with challening times. Thank you.
Sean Folley
Nov 22, 2020
Do not trust these sharks of the travel industry. I booked our family holiday to Croatia last September. I paid 2,450.00 deposit. I understand that because of this awful virus things change. But this week I received an email stating that if I do not pay the balance we would lose our deposit. I spoke to my wife and we decided to pay the balance of 7,489.00 as James villas said there were no restrictions and our holiday could go ahead.
I paid the balance on Monday afternoon and on Tuesday morning James Villas phoned me and cancelled our holiday. I was told I would be refunded instantly but this has never happened and now I cannot get an answer on the phone or email. I am shocked that James Villas would treat there customers this way. We are currently almost 10k out of pocket. I would never ever book another holiday with this company. I would advise anyone who reads this to think twice about booking.
I paid the balance on Monday afternoon and on Tuesday morning James Villas phoned me and cancelled our holiday. I was told I would be refunded instantly but this has never happened and now I cannot get an answer on the phone or email. I am shocked that James Villas would treat there customers this way. We are currently almost 10k out of pocket. I would never ever book another holiday with this company. I would advise anyone who reads this to think twice about booking.
Brad Rymer
Mar 05, 2020
Accommodation cleanliness was sub-standard and the place was grubby; JV rep was non-existent; Owner thought it was acceptable to bring his dog in to change the bedding; satellite TV didn't work; jacuzzi bath didn't work. and to top it all off, James Villas idea of customer service is to send an email that pretty much just said: "Thanks for letting us know." James Villas idea of service is awful! AVOID! Just check the amount of poor reviews they have on Trustpilot!
Gari Wilashko
Feb 16, 2020
Riz Miarkowski
Dec 09, 2019
No aircon in one of bedrooms even though was in accommodation details that all bedrooms had a/c. Got a small refund for that. However, my daughter who had to sleep with her sibling in the same room was injured by a large needle poking up on her bed mattress that drew blood. James Villas seemed rather disinterested and did not seem to see the health & safety implications - it might have injured someone's eye?! Not really impressed with the customer service of James Villas.
Sean McHale
Nov 01, 2017
I first used James Villas for our Tuscany holiday nearly 13 years ago now and I've been happy to recommend to our clients ever since. What I like is that they allow me to book villa holidays for my customers at thier web rates and if I have cheaper car rentals available elsewhere James Villas are happy to leave me to arrange that. To date I have had no complaints using this company so unless anything changes I'll keep selling them! Sean McHale Bespoke Travel
