AMI Locals — Local services in Holmes Beach

We were trying to find a resolution directly with the company but it's been weeks of back and forth and they waited days between responses until they just responding. And now I can't review them on Airbnb because it's been too long so hopefully renters check Google reviews as well since we aren't able to leave one directly on the listing. Adding to say, the company wasn't responsive to Airbnb so we were given a portion of our stay back from Airbnb but it was after our stay so there wasn't much they could do for us. I believe this was on purpose from the rental company to drag things out.

The property management company is horrible. We never received our check in information so I messaged when we were on our way from the airport and they did send it but she told me to make sure I checked my junk mail(which I did before I messaged) like it was my fault for not receiving it. Not a big deal at first, but it all adds up.

We were eating breakfast one morning and the chair my teenage daughter was sitting on collapsed sending her to the hard floor on her tailbone. It looked the chair had broken before and been poorly fixed. So check the chairs before you sit.

We were supposed to have 2 parking spaces. My husband and son had left and all of sudden there were so many golf carts we wouldn't be able to park at our house. This house is on an extremely busy main street so backing out of the parking area would be unsafe. I sent a text and they responded and told me to call the police to have them ticketed and towed. My daughters and I had just been heading out but did that and then had to stay and wait for the police. The officer said the owner of our rental house also co-owns a golf cart rental business and she called and they were using our parking for overflow parking for the golf carts and they wouldn't be moving them until the next day. The property management rep told us we could use a church parking lot that was a 56 minute walk away from the rental house and when I stated that, they told me we could take the trolley, which is not a reliable form of transportation. All the time this took made us have to miss our plans and late for dinner and the sunset. It could have been avoided but the property management rep told me to call the police and it was their own company causing the problem. The golf carts weren't moved until later the next day.

This leads to the air conditioning issues. It's Florida. It was in the 90's and you need a/c. It went out the night of the golf cart issues. Our entire family had the most miserable night of sleep. It was 80 degrees in the house and we couldn't open the windows because it was such a busy street and it didn't feel safe. I let the rep know in the morning and they sent a tech. They said they needed to call the a/c company. We had left to eat and came back another person from the property management team came and said the a/c can't be fixed but they sent him to put in a window air conditioner but that he wouldn't be able to do that because of the style of windows in the older house and it being unsafe to have the windows unsecured. The rental company's solutions was to give us some box fans. It was over 80 degrees in the house by this point and everyone was sweating just sitting there and box fans weren't going to help. This was our last night of vacation and we had planned on being at the beach all evening. At 6:00 they offered to have us stay in another house. We had to pack up and do all the check out items at this house after 9pm and move to another house. That house seemed to be nicer but had these little bugs and bug wings all over the beds. They weren't bed bugs but still disgusting and at this point we were exhausted and went to bed and left the next morning not feeling like we had just been on vacation. And looking back at all the communication, there was not one apology for any of the inconveniences we had.

I asked for one night of a refund which I thought was reasonable and they offered us a very minimal amount and wouldn't negotiate so at that point, went...

DO NOT USE THIS COMPANY. - READ BEFORE RENTING THROUGH AMI LOCALS (ALSO KNOWN AS PRIME VACATIONS) SAVE YOUR $$$$

My husband and I just returned home from AMI this morning. We are from the Midwest and wanted a coastal getaway. We booked through AMI LOCALS directly (warning - they have properties listed on Airbnb and VRBO too)

Upon arriving at our AMI locals rental property (after a 3 hour flight with no service in the air) I pulled my email up to get the door key code and to our surprise, less than 2 hours prior, OUR PROPERTY WAS CANCELLED THE DAY OF. No warning. Little explanation. And worst of all NO SOLUTION.

There we are standing with two check bags, in 90 degree weather PLUS I am 6 months pregnant (I informed the company of this when booking) with swollen feet and tears in my eyes, wondering what the heck is happening.

I didn’t know if it was a scam!? I called the company and she (Terri) nonchalantly confirmed “yep sorry cancelled due to fire code” (THE DAY OF OUR ARRIVAL) then this woman proceeded to tell me to “calm down” and that this issue was “above her pay grade” she was no help until I told her I needed to speak with a manager.

I own & manage 2 businesses back in Nebraska and I tell you, if one of our 60 employees said this to a customer I couldn’t even imagine.

The company attempted to send us some absolutely abhorrent properties to stay in as an alternative. Neither even remotely close to the location we wanted nor as nice or new. I refused. I asked them if we could please be in something nicer and in a better location in which she took another hour to get back to me. We were in a total panic. Imagine a reservation being cancelled on a non-commercialized island with no resolution and rude staff.

The first 3 hours of this trip were an absolute nightmare. Finally they found us an empty property, sadly it was 18 minutes away from the original, now in Bradenton beach. This forced us to spend another $400 renting a golf cart because pregnant me couldn’t walk 2 hours to the other side of the island.

Finally when arriving to this place way far away from any of the main restaurants, beaches, or views we wanted - sadly it was also junk. Grime and mold in the bathrooms. Broken cabinets in the kitchen. Sand on the floors. No code for the beach equipment (which by the way was broken)

By far the worst part was the fact that this joke of a company must put some sort of lock on their thermostats?? 6 months pregnant, 82% humidity, and we couldn’t turn the thermostat down past 76 degrees! Ugh it was so uncomfortable. We never slept. We tried to call and call but no answer to their guest services line.

We were ticked off. Sad, disappointed, frustrated and it truly set the tone for a short 4 day trip that was suppose to be for a Babymoon / anniversary.

We actually decided we don’t know if we ever want to go back because of this experience with this company. Just awful.

In our time waiting in the heat, we called around to other companies and got recommendations from realtors for rental properties with better reputations. Listed here:

Cedar Cove SeaBreeze Vacation Salty Mermaid Real-estate

I would highly recommend staying AWAY from AMI LOCALS AKA PRIME VACATIONS and...

We had a wonderful experience staying at Peachy Keen. This was our third winter staying at this property. We've come to feel like it was our home away from home. A few minor improvements I would recommend- The dining room table is awkward and uncomfortable. We didn't really use it. The silverware is very old and clumsy the outside furniture could use some improvements. These are all minor. There were however, a few issues during our stay. The pool heater broke and for a large majority of our stay, we were not able to use the pool, which was a big disappointment. The water was freezing. Additionally, the elevator in the property broke as well which we really didn't use much during our stay, but when we were ready to check out it was an inconvenience. I would say the biggest issue we had was with the property management company AMI Locals not honoring our commitment to book for next year. Next year would have been our 4th year at this property. We enjoy the proximity to the beach and we do have 2 dogs. It is difficult to find a pet friendly rental that is reasonable and close to the beach. We always book before we go home. We communicated our request to book for the coming year Via email. They confirmed and responded with a quote and indicated all we needed to do was call to provide our deposit. I received the response after hours, so I called first thing in the morning to make the deposit and was told that they had already booked the house out to someone else at 7 pm the night before. This was after the time they had already communicated to me that they were happy to have us return, offered us a returning customer discount. It was completely unprofessional, and I was totally blindsided by their actions. Clearly, they made a mistake and they should have honored their agreement to rent to us. There was no acknowledgment of our return year after year, no acknowledgment of our customer loyalty and no right of first refusal by this management company. I tried every way possible to work this out with them, but they would not budge off of their position. This ruined the next week of my stay. I will never rent through this property management company again and I will be sure to broadly communicate my experience. Other property management companies do offer right of first refusal to renters that book 28 or more days. I have consistently booked an excess of two months. And each year I have been adding more time to my stay. They lost a loyal customer and also much goodwill. I wish I could've communicated with the owners, but that is not possible. My recommendation would be to stay away from Prime Vacations and AMI locals. There are plenty of other property management companies to work with.

Update: after reading my review here they did reach out with an offer to fix their mistake. I really...