Questions concerning my next Booking to Florida

[amicipat]

Hi, My sister and I have travelled and both lived and, more recently taken vacations in the Disney Area.

Our last trip in 2018 was disappointing both for accomodation and VA flights.

We are getting on in years now so intended to have one last vacation spanning several weeks. We were making plans when the Covid situation hit and now we just do not know what to do, so I decided to ask for help/suggestions from members.

1. we have 30000 each with Virgin which were given to us for the problems last trip. What are your thoughts on laying out these points plus cash at this time, with the current situation or should we book everything else and hope we can get flights prior to our date of travel which is not decided yet anyway, but we have to start somewhere! and we hope to go as said for several weeks, so getting flights a day or two outside our villa dates would not be a problem.

2. On our last stay everything in the villa was 'as described' except TV in all rooms. Upon arrival there was no cable at all, just roku in the lounge and one master, TVs in all other rooms were not connected and could only be used for DVDs. As a one time resident of Florida we do like to watch local news "live" as against 24 hours later, and we can watch all the re-runs and DVDs etc. we want at home, US TV is part of our vacation.

I know when I raised this at the time some of you did point out to me that the exorbitant cost of Cable was not sustainable in a rental, but I would have liked to have known this, and perhaps even given the option to pay extra. I know, of course that it is not possible to switch cable on and off monthly, but I would pay a small weekly increase for a home that did have good cable service throughout the home, and of course being of the more senior generation we are not tech savvy and never did work out how to watch anything other than 2014 re runs of Wheel of Fortune!

Spectrum was mentioned by the MC but we never found that until the last evening when tidying up and found the remote down the back of a sofa we never used!

I apologise for the length of this starter thread, but we are really nervous that as we age time is running out and this really will be our 'goodbye to Florida' and want it to be as special as it can be.

Finally, we think we would not go until 2021 anyway but I notice many villa owners are saying they are nearly booked for then anyway, so we need to get a move on.

[steve@mac155.f]

You may find a lot of villas are already booked up for 2021 due to moving guests that should have gone this year to next year, so i would sort accommodation sooner rather than later fr 2021, if you were to move your dates to 2022 you might find better availability.

Streaming services like ROKU are getting more popular for owners to use as the cost is a lot less than a full cable package in multiple rooms, as they get the spectrum cable channel line up using the spectrum app on the Roku device if they have Spectrum internet and at lest 1 cable box normally in the family room, myself for instance i have 2 spectrum cable boxes for the tv's in the family room and den the bedroom tv's all have roku sticks fitted so they can get the cable package via the app.

If this will be your last trip a money plus miles fare could be your best option to use them up.

Steve

[amicipat]

Thank you, I have not yet visited the VA site as I am a little worried that they might not be around much longer, and I can see that there are concerns about refunds etc. What would be the position if I were to book flights nowish and then they go bust - use a credit card, and purchase good insurance, would that cover me?

[steve@mac155.f]

Good insurance is a must and it should cover scheduled airline failure, paying by credit card will also give you cover under section 75 of the consumer credit act.

Depending on when you want to travel you may need to wait for a while to book as VA only releases it's flights 11 months in advance so now you will be able to book your flights up to the beginning of June 2021.

I hope they will be around for a long time yet as i have flights booked with them for November this year and march next year lol.


Steve