A holiday home owner on the Isle of Wight has been left thousands of pounds out of pocket as a result of Booking.com stopping her guest payments amid a technical issue – and she’s not the only one.
Hannah Kirby from the Island owns 2 properties out in the West Wight – both at Brambles Chine. She rents them out through the popular holiday website Booking.com, but has found herself owed nearly £8,000 from the online giant as a result of a technical issue that hit their system back in July.
The issue has left hosts up and down the country going without as they wait in limbo for the overdue guest payments to be sent to them.
At the beginning of the Summer, Booking.com chose to carry out maintenance on their finance system meaning all payments were halted until the work was completed. It was originally hoped that work would be completed on the system and Hannah would be paid by 24th July, but this has since been extended to 4th August then 10th August, and finally 15th August.
It was agreed that all owed payments would be paid in 1 single lump sum, however, no payments have been forthcoming.
In attempts to get hold of Booking.com, disgruntled clients have been met with hostility on the phone often having calls put down and emails ignored, it is claimed.
Many holiday homeowners and hoteliers on the Isle of Wight use Booking.com to facilitate all bookings and payments. In return, the travel agency takes 15% of the transaction. Clients are meant to be paid every Thursday.
Hannah has told Island Echo:
“Many people that I have talked to, on a dedicated Facebook page, are consumed with anxiety and worry. One lady is having counselling. Some have had their gas, electricity and water cut off, as they have no other income and cannot afford the bills.
“The idea that booking.com have purposely held on to peoples money during high season; a time when most money/commission is generated, highest level of interest for years and also when they have just spent millions on sponsorship for the Women’s World Cup and World Athletics Championships, leads many of us to assume a cynical belief that this is a scandalous money generating scam.”
Good! Down with all holiday homes here.
My heart bleeds for her. Oh wait, this isn’t feudal times, she should get a real job.
This person owns three properties on the island.?
People wonder why there is a housing shortage and the need to build thousands of new properties here.
Brambles Chine is a holiday park…these are not houses/homes, they are small holiday chalets. The owner is not taking away available housing from anyone. Pretty sure these types of sites only allow a certain amount of weeks occupancy per year anyway, it’s not somewhere can you live permanently.
What is to stop anyone from living there all year around.? A covenant.? A covenant can be removed.
Homeowners used to be in these chalets and move out for those ten weeks, they were affordable properties too.
Most were bought up by wealthy second home owners, this lady who now owns two of them has a £13,000 a month income from mainlanders holidaying here while island people are on the streets.
In January 2023 it was reported the island made 280 million in tourism one would say we need tourists for the islands economy ….. where should these tourists stay? Should we ban everyone from owning a holiday chalet or air bnb until England has housed every homeless person? Housing is a crisis yes but maybe we should be directing this disgruntled attitude to the people who own actual second homes on the island.. as of March 2023 this stood at 2787 .. 135 of which are empty.
This covenant cannot be removed. If you feel so strongly about it, as you obviously do, maybe you could petition the Linstone Chine Managment Company and the 200 plus members that own properties here.
You would then need to be consistent and take action against all of the holiday parks on the island.
Maybe you could also target Hotels too, I mean you could house plenty of people in some of these.
Be prepared for even higher levels of unemployment, when you have done away with the tourism industry.
If only it was that much income… what actual island people are on the streets
It’s £237 a night to stay in one of hannahs chalets.
There’s several hundred island people on the council housing list.
People could stay in proper hotels or bed and breakfast accommodation and give those people jobs. Instead of renting out half a garage for a quick buck on an airbnb webpage
I find your comment quite interesting calling them ‘half a garage’ you’re implying they are not worthy to stay in for a vacation but also implying a family should live in one full time with the remark about the housing list ?
Further to my comment regarding second homes maybe on reflection we should also highlight the issue of people in social housing who are in houses far bigger than they need? I know of one lady who’s children have grown up and moved out and she’s now in a three bedroom home for just herself or are we drawing the line at kicking people out of homes to downgrade for another family in need but happy to tell other when to sell holiday chalets?
If someone wants to pay £237 why can’t they she’s not forcing anyone.
If you open your eyes you would see these 2 buildings are holiday chalets which CANNOT be lived in for 52 weeks a year and therefore are not suitable for housing.
I thought those chalets at Brambles Chine had restricted rules; they could only be used as a holiday let, and residents could not live there for the full 12 months of the year.
They’re not 12 month occupancy down there….. if you house 200 of people down there where are you going to send them when you’re not allowed to stay on site??
It is funny how people have issues with general people doing well and not even mention the multimillion pound company, taking money off of holiday makers and not paying the owners
The UK PM owns many more homes and much larger homes, just like the
Royals.
Why should people who are successful not be allowed to own a few
Small homes to make some extra revenue.
Good luck to her.
In what way is the PM successful, he is a failure like the rest of them, and the royals, well state sponsored scroungers more like. Not good luck to her, good luck to the rest of us normal people. If you like owning more than one home, try the mainland, there is more room. If you judge success by the amount of cash in a bank account then you indeed are shallow.
I would rather have Rishis bank account than yours pal, for £750 million i couldn’t give a monkeys what people say about being shallow, and i guess neither does he.
So many people are jealous of other people.
These are holiday homes, with a 42 week per year occupancy. No-one is allowed to live on-site.
If they are paying full council tax there should be no rules, unless they pay
10 weeks less council tax.
No sympathy at all for these kind of leeches. If that’s one of the properties, well who the hell would want to stay there anyway, just looks like a converted coal bunker or breeze block shed. Try selling up and getting a normal job rather than sitting back and relying on someone else to rake in the money for you.
She has a ‘real job’ job too. What a silly comment when you don’t know the person.
real job, ripping off people. overpriced in the extreme.
Yes a real job in public services alongside this one, but I’m sure as a narcissist you’ll find an equally narcissistic comment.
So not leeching, in fact the absolute opposite.
Yawn, you mean clerk by any chance, if so then try learning to spell properly.
No front line….this has really rattled you hasn’t it darling…bless. Xx
What are you wittering about? You’re coming across as a very jealous and bitter individual. Sad to see. For the record, Clark is a surname. The only yawning that should be necessary, would be at your bizarre and irrational jealousy and resentment that someone makes a good living for themselves, that’s before we even remark on the fact that you’re someone who is so irate about this that you randomly try to give spelling advice whilst you’re at it.
I’m sure if it were you, you’d just forgo the 8k if you were owed it, wouldn’t you? Maybe we can arrange for your employer (probably
Jay Millers circus, judging by what an utter clown you’re being) to chop 8k off your salary and give it to a homeless person.
I own a property on Booking.com, I work 9 to 5, save money and bought myself a place to retire to but until then, I use it to earn some extra bucks, what’s wrong with that?
Instead sitting there and being so bitter about other people’s success, get a life yourself!
Seems to be a trend happening here with first Etsy, then Amazon and now Booking.com withholding payments
Oh what a shame! NOT. Hope you have to pay council tax on the properties, people are so greedy, there’s a housing shortage too!!
Some have had their gas, electricity and water cut off, as they have no other income and cannot afford the bills.
You will get absolutely no sympathy hannah as you are in control of properties that could be used by a family for year round living and you are also depriving the hotels of guests.
if you cannot afford to maintain those properties without regular income from guests, then your business plan is weak. Perhaps you should be building up a cash reserve for just these situations.
They are not allowed to be used all year round, as there are strict regulations prohibiting this. 42 weeks per year, as many people have already mentioned. I’m not quite sure what you are struggling to grasp, but this person is not taking away valuable housing from people that need it. This site is like any other holiday park on the island that is set up for holiday makers not tenants, unlike Gurnard pines.
I fully agree with you.
You do have to wonder about someone pleading poverty and not being able to afford to pay bills when they could quite easily sell the chalet for current market value of £165,000.
If hannah sold her two chalets that is £330,000 in her pocket. That would pay the bills for many decades and two island families would be happy to live there.
Hannah is not saying she’s having trouble paying her bills, she’s saying that this scandal has affected people across the country and that some are really struggling. Even though she may be doing quite well, she still doesn’t want to lose £8k out of principle; Who would? She’s merely highlighting a situation that has arisen with booking.com.
Roll up, roll up. Free financial advice from Sloop John B. Get it here now! Just a thought, but most rental properties are actually mortgaged so the might be a lot less equity than you assume.
Yeah, I agree. When you’re ever owed
a fairly substantial amount of money in your business, don’t worry about claiming it, just sell your business. I’ll have to suggest to some builder friends of mine who are owed several thousands of pounds for an extension they built last spring, to just cut their losses and sell their business rather than attempt to recoup the money. Can we get you on dragons den , pal?
I’m one of the ones that haven’t been paid by booking.con. 2 months with no payment. People are suffering here, and all I see is islanders complaining because of tourist.
If those having a pop at Hannah actually read the article, they would understand that the issue is being out of pocket by £8K. To vilify someone who helps to bring money into the island economy is the “red mist” of envy and irrationality. Shame that they reduce it to rude and unfounded remarks that are not warranted or reasonable. It is quite sad to see the unreasonable and aggressive behaviour of people!
Welcome. You have just entered the twilight zone called Island Echo comments.
Yes, and the lengths they go to to try and prove a point, which they mostly wrong about is actually so sad and desperate. What sad, jealous individuals.