KVM - Highclere House for large groups with parking by KVM Stays♡

KVM are a complete nightmare to deal with. It was the worst experience I have ever had on booking.com.

1.0

We never got to stay in the property we booked. On arrival it had not been cleaned for a long time. Bread was rock hard in the kitchen. This is despite me messaging KVM to say that all beds were needed including bedding for the sofa bed. I booked a 4 double bedroomed house with a sofa bed but got transferred to a 2 bedroomed flat with one double, one twin room and two sofa beds. There were five of us and one sofa bed had no bedding. One guest therefore had to sleep on a sofa bed wth no bedding at all instead of being in a double bedroom. The two people in the twin room should have had a double bedroom each. Because of the layout of the flat, two men had to walk through the sitting room to get to the bathroom at night and the sitting room was a bedroom for two women. So men had to walk through a women’s bedroom to get to the toilet at night.

− KVM was hard to deal with. They wanted the passport ID of everyone staying in the house. They wanted a contract signed, and a deposit of £500 sending in advance of the stay. Instead of taking clearance to take up to £500 in case of any damage, they actually took the full £500 from my account. That is more than the £440 paid to book the house for two nights. That’s outrageous. They did not send me the keycode until 4.30 pm or 5.00 pm after some of my friends had already arrived and not been able to get in. The keycode was hidden in an email of maybe 3000 words of densely worded instructions. My friends were waiting on the doorstep for half an hour wondering what was going on. I was on the motorway driving to Peterborough and could not read any emails and find the code to give them. I should have had the key 24 hrs before to give my friends the information before any of us set off on our journey there. When the first person got in and discovered the house was not clean, and we then rang KVM to inform them, KVM tried to charge me another £70 saying the four bed house was booked out to one person and the other four people were extra. I said I had made it clear that there were five people. When you book a whole house with five beds, they must assume all beds would be used. One person would not book a five bed house for £440 and occupy one bed. Eventually they retracted that and put us in a two bedroomed flat. We should have had an upgrade because of their incompetence, not a downgrade to a two bed flat. They argued with us at every point and were not apologetic. I need a refund as I did not get what I paid for.

Stunning, spacious and impeccably clean

10.0

Clean, spacious and a perfect location. We will be going to us them again.

− Bins (outside) were full

We enjoyed our stay

8.0

Very convenient for us nice house

− When we arrived we could smell stale smoke in the hallway

Exceptional

10.0

Very comfortable, well equipped kitchen, large living room and parking for 2 vehicles

Superb

9.0

It was not bad but stressful due to KVM stays excess payment for not proper reasons. It would be fair to get some refun

6.0

It was spacious , clean , good location and locality .

− There were a number of things which needs mentioning . It did not have all facilities as mentioned and paid for . Firstly it did not have a dishwater . We stayed there for 5 nights and had to do all dishes manually in spite of paying for dish water as it was advertised as a facility. Secondly it did not a tea coffee maker as promised . Thirdly the property ran out of hot water on one occasion. Fourthly, we were charged £120 earlier for cleaning and we had expected a cleaner to come to clean the premises but not one came!!!!!Also no one came to change the bins . We had to maintain the cleanliness ourselves despite paying £120 !!!!!.. When questioned later it was said that was a weekly cleaning charge of the property . Is that not a maintenance cost that should be handled by the owner / management and not the guest . Last but not the least , we were asked to pay extra £ 500 deposit in advance for any damages during the stay . We were sent a link by KVM stays that did not work as our Bank did not allow us to make any payment due to it being an insecure link .This deposit was not mentioned in the advert and came as a surprise after we had booked the stay . We have had very positive and successful stays booking via booking.com in the past and always recommend it to friends and family . But KVM stays experience sadly has not been great due to the above . We request Booking .com to look into the matter as it might ruin the good reputation and trust of the customers with booking .com . It would be fair to get some refund back as we paid for facilities that was not advertised but not provided.