canaryvip.com

CanaryVIP – misleading, unprofessional, and a waste of holiday time

I booked a VIP Balinese bed on the Five Star Catamaran and paid €230. The website showed the date in green, which clearly suggests availability. After paying, I received an email saying my booking was not confirmed and still had to be approved by “local operators.” Later they told me the beds were not available at all for that day.This shows their system does not check real-time availability. It allows customers to pay for services that do not exist, and only afterwards do they inform you the booking isn’t possible. That is misleading and simply bad business practice. Any professional booking system should only take payment after availability is confirmed, or at the very least make it clear before checkout that payment is only a request pending approval.When I asked to cancel, they told me the money was “only on hold and not charged.” That was not true. The money had already been debited from my account. Later I even received an official refund confirmation email, which proves it was taken and then refunded. If it had truly been “on hold,” the amount would have been released the same day automatically. Instead I was told it could take up to 10 days to see my own money again. That is unacceptable.The result was stress and wasted time. Instead of enjoying my holiday in Tenerife, I had to exchange messages, worry about €230 missing from my account, and wait for a refund of a service I never received. A holiday is supposed to be relaxing, not spent chasing your own money and questioning misleading explanations from a company.In the Canary Islands there are many trusted operators, who provide instant confirmation with real availability. They don’t charge you unless the service is guaranteed. That’s how it should be.My experience with CanaryVIP was the exact opposite: fake availability, payment taken without confirmation, misleading excuses afterwards, and a long wait to get a refund

Date of experience: Aug 18, 2025