Paying for a holiday by cash

Maru1369

I hope someone can give me some advice. I have just booked to travel to the O'Pomar apartments in the Algarve. All the reviews seem to be great. I have now been told that we need to pay in cash to the apartment complex as they do not accept credit cards. Everything you read always says to not pay by cash so i wondered whether anyone else had encountered this for the O'Pomar. We have booked through Bookings.com on a non refundable tariff (although have not handed over any payment details or names of travellers etc). We are waiting for an email from them to give us details of where to send payment. Any advise gratefully received.

elsien

Do you need to pay a deposit through booking.com? If so, you might be able to pay that on the cc and if it's over £100 you can pay the rest when you get there and still get the section 75 cover.

crazycamper

Be careful. Booking.com is basically reliant on hoteliers updating their site. It does not sound like you have a booking made at all yet. Also remember that booking everything separately will not give you ATOL protection.

jonesMUFCforever

elsien wrote: »

Do you need to pay a deposit through booking.com? If so, you might be able to pay that on the cc and if it's over £100 you can pay the rest when you get there and still get the section 75 cover.

Are you sure?
By paying booking.com and not the hotel direct you are breaking the creditor/debtor chain so IMO there would be no s75 cover.

hollydays

They say "
Please note that on the day of booking, the hotel will contact guests and request a bank transfer of 50% of the total price of the reservation. This prepayment must be done until 15 days prior to check-in.

Please note that for Non-Refundable rates, the hotel will contact guests on the day of booking and request a bank transfer of 100% of the total price of the reservation. This prepayment must be done until 2 days after the reservation date.

A security deposit of EUR 200 is required upon arrival for incidentals. This deposit is fully refundable upon check-out and subject to a damage inspection of the accommodation."

It looks as though other operators including alpha rooms do take card payments .
What I'd be aware of is there are very few reviws of this complex. I wonder if some of it has been a time share and still owned by letting agents for example.