Benfica Holidays

Extremely disappointing experience at a hotel marketed as 5-star. We experienced a series of basic service failures that made our stay unnecessarily stressful. On arrival there were no porters and nobody offered assistance with our luggage. We had to use the bell trolley ourselves. We were told the trolley would be collected, but the following morning it was still there. The checkout experience was worse. At 11:45am, I requested help bringing our bags down. Nobody came. I chased at 12:30, 12:45 and 1pm, and still received no assistance. By 1:30pm, I had started moving the luggage myself. Only then did someone finally arrive. We had a flight to catch and almost missed it because of the delay. This was incredibly stressful and completely avoidable. Communication was also difficult, with limited English making it harder to resolve the situation quickly. When I asked for a manager, I was told one would come, but nobody did. Christian then became involved and told me he wasn’t a manager, despite me having been told otherwise. Another staff member, Pablo, appeared unexpectedly and interrupted my conversation. The interaction left me feeling intimidated and uncomfortable. There was no meaningful apology and, from what I could see, no investigation into what had happened. For a property presented as 5-star, I expected basic organisation, luggage assistance and professional handling of a guest complaint. Instead, a simple checkout became a prolonged and stressful ordeal!

I must say that we are more than disappointed. We decided to push our stay back a couple of days from the original booking and called the day before. We were told a manager was not available and to call the following day. My wife, who is a Brazilian national, spoke with the manager. He assured her all he needed was an email from Expedia, the agency we booked through. Expedia sent them an email and even followed -up with a phone call. Nonetheless, he refused to honor the request to move the reservation back a couple of days. In fact, he would take 100% of the cost for all of the days, even though we never set foot on property. If they kept a percentage as a deposit, that would be understandable, but ALL of it?That’s greedy nonsense! Next, I spoke with the manager myself, who said he never agreed to move the days upon receiving the email from Expedia. Well then, why exactly would you tell us you needed the email? In the United States we have a word for that type of business practice, it’s called dishonest. Thank God for Amex Platinum, who we’re using to refute the charges. Suffice to say, we will never use or recommend this hotel brand in the future. I caution any American who doesn’t want to be cheated.

For the price I paid, the room was well below expectations. The door lock did not work properly and some parts of the doors were falling off. Not what you expect from a hotel at this level. A real disappointment compared with the hotel I remembered.