Booked in advance, cancelled a month before check-in
We reserved a vacation rental with AJ Home Rentals well ahead of a family trip to The Villages. Less than a month before our scheduled check-in, we were told the reservation was cancelled because the homeowner wanted the property back for personal use.
The initial replacement properties we were offered were consistently farther from our family and more expensive than our original booking. When we asked the company to cover that price difference, they declined and pointed to the terms of the signed rental agreement. We did eventually receive a full refund of what we'd paid, which we appreciate, but it didn't restore the actual trip we'd planned around that specific location.
What stood out most after digging into it: the rental agreement has a clear, detailed refund schedule for when a guest cancels. But if the company or homeowner cancels on you, that's handled in a completely different section of the contract, one that doesn't guarantee any refund and has the guest waive claims. It isn't listed under "cancellation" anywhere, so it's easy to miss when you're signing.
The individual staff we interacted with were courteous and professional. It's the company's own policy for handling its own cancellations that left us without an actual resolution to the trip.