Some Questions People Ask …
Is it Really a Raffle?
Yes – we are issuing 33,333 numbers and 10 of them will win a house or a studio.
No – in a raffle you lose all your money once the raffle is over. With us, even after the ten raffle draws you still have a hotel voucher worth every cent you paid for it. Win or lose.
Is it a Hotel Promotion?
Yes – we are giving you a huge incentive to visit our hotels, stay with us for at least three nights.
No – we aren’t forcing you to visit us. If you invest in a hotel voucher/raffle ticket and you don’t win a house or studio, and can’t visit us because you live too far away, you can still sell your voucher anytime before the end of 2012.
Is There a Catch?
Yes. To use your voucher to get all your money credited back we ask you to stay at least three nights with us. That way you’ll spend about four times the amount you paid for your voucher. About four times the amount we give you back.
Believe me, we’re not a charity for people who want a free vacation home in Spain.
What are the terms?
Simple. To redeem your voucher you stay a minimum of three nights in a deluxe room or suite. That’s for one voucher. If you want to get your money back on two, you need to stay six nights. And so on.
When can I stay?
Anytime, subject to availability. But you may not combine your deposit voucher with any other discount or special offers.
What if I can’t visit you?
You still take part in all the draws for the properties. Afterwards, you can sell your voucher to someone else, on eBay or through a travel agent. Lots of people like to visit us so you shouldn’t have any trouble selling it.
May I give your deposit vouchers as gifts?
Of course. They make marvelous gifts. Either before the draws, so your recipient might win a prize, or after the draws simply to be used as a discount on a stay with us.
If I win, what can I do with my prize?
Keep it to use, sell it for cash, lend it to friends and family, or rent it out for regular income. We might even be able to manage the rentals for you.
But I live so far away …
So? See above. Sell your prize or rent it out. If you live far away it might be nice to have a pile of euros or regular income in euros coming in.
You’ll send me my vouchers and tickets?
Not any more. We started off by doing that, but they got lost, people misplaced them and we were warned about fraud and forgery. Now we keep everything secure for you here in Europe, backed up by a data base kept by the Hostgator people in Florida. Everyone says it’s safer for you.
Where does my money go?
Into a blocked account administered by watchdog accountants. We have access only to a small portion of the funds to be used for promotional and clerical costs.
How do I know you’re not scammers?
You don’t, though I’m tempted to say, “Because we’re not a bank”. Still, I’d simply ask whether you ever heard of scammers so publicly out in the open, sitting in our hotels, or our son’s cafe/grill nearby, available to anyone who ambles over to talk to us? Yes, we know about Bernie Madoff, but I’ll bet he didn’t drive a 1992 Volkswagen Golf, as I do. I’m afraid we’re not that remarkable; we’re just a nice normal family doing something new and slightly off-the-wall.
When is the next draw?
As soon as we arrive at the next 3,333 voucher/tickets sold. The exact date will depend on future voucher purchasers.
What if you don’t sell all of the tickets?
We’re not like other raffles, dependent on selling all their tickets before the draw can take place. We are holding a draw every time 3,333 voucher/tickets are sold. Theoretically, if people were to entirely stop investing in our voucher/tickets, it could be that we might have five winners owning their prizes, while we carried on renting out the other five properties just the way we are using them now, as a second hotel. And if you owned a ticket, you would have had five chances to win in the last draw, not just one.
What happens if I invest in only one chance?
Your number will take part in the next draw. Then it will go back into the pool to be sold to someone else.
But let me ask you something. What if you get only one chance, don’t participate in any more draws and then that number – your former number – wins a major prize? I wonder how you’d feel.
It’s also much more expensive, because of the high administrative cost, to get only one chance instead of a ticket/voucher good for all the nine remaining raffles.
What is the case for property raffles?
Everybody wins. For a property owner, it’s a quicker alternative to waiting for the right buyer in a depressed market. For ticket purchasers it’s a chance to win a house for the price of lunch, and at far better odds than state lotteries. For charities, it’s a windfall – money that comes in with little or no effort on their part.
