Ardennes-étape Reviews 

We stayed in a property in Aubel booked through Ardenned-etape (reservation 664133) and on the day of our check out the owner came in to ask if everything was ok with our stay and asked us to sign a paper that everything was in order. Just to point out here that her Dutch was very limited and she spoke no English. She did not check the apartment while we were still there but she said that everything was fine from her side. The next day we received an email from Ardenne-etape saying they are keeping our deposit of 300 euros because of a damage and that they were waiting from the owner for photos. We contacted the owner directly to ask what the damage was. She replied that she did not expect Ardenne-etape to contact us about this because she asked for the insurance to cover it. She said that there were stains on the wood counter of the bathroom sink. The photos she sent to us showed some stains which were in the corner of the counter and as we can recall very well in that corner there were three small decorative bamboo style boxes which were covering that part of the counter. On the photo it showed she had put aside these boxes to show us the stains underneath. We told her that we did not use these boxes at all and we had not seen these stains before, otherwise we would have told her about it or tried to clean them if it was our mess. She also said that she would need a professional cleaner to remove these stains or might even have the wood replaced! We were really surprised that we were accused for doing this and that they could just hold the whole deposit until they could inform us on how much the cost would be. We have stayed in many places abroad and never experienced anything like it before. It feels like they are making easy money this way when they know we have no way to defend ourselves. It is really a shame to see that they can get away with keeping the deposit and claim all sorts of damages so that they don't have to return it.