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
Reply from CanaryVIP
We would like to clarify a few points for future guests:
Our website explains in several sections that reservations are confirmed manually with local operators. We never state that bookings on CanaryVIP are instantly confirmed, and this is especially important in peak season such as August, when advance reservations are always recommended. One of our strengths, and the reason many clients choose us, is the direct and personalized support we provide via WhatsApp every day.
In this case, the booking was made for the very next day in the busiest month of the year. You were contacted via WhatsApp in less than 30 minutes to inform you that the Balinese beds were not available for that date. We also replied promptly to your Instagram message. We always try to offer alternative dates or similar activities, which most guests appreciate and enjoy.
Interestingly, you later mentioned that you ended up booking Balinese beds directly at your hotel for another date. That was exactly the type of alternative we offered you from the start, which could have saved you the “waste of time” you complain about. Instead, a lot of time was spent writing us long messages and posting negative reviews on different platforms, when the easiest solution would have been to accept one of the alternatives we suggested.
We handle hundreds of bookings every month, and our guests value our fast communication, flexibility, and access to the best operators in Tenerife. You are the only guest who has raised this type of complaint, which shows how rare this situation is.
We understand your frustration, but our process is transparent and clearly explained on the website, even if in this case it seems the information was not taken into account.
At CanaryVIP, our mission is to connect travelers with the best local operators in Tenerife while offering fast, personalized support. We are also working on a new platform that will include real-time availability integrations, but in the meantime we continue to provide the same high-quality service as other established local agencies, with the added value of personal assistance to make sure our guests enjoy the best possible experiences.
Because of this personalized booking process, we ensure 100% that every reservation is fully confirmed and managed with the most reputable operators in the Canary Islands. Unlike large platforms that only offer automated bookings without any personal support, we provide dedicated assistance to guarantee that our guests are in good hands from start to finish.
