It is already overbooked for the spa bonus, the 100% discount on the price of spa services, up to a maximum of 200 euros per person. Even before the click day of November 8th. A measure launched to accelerate the recovery of one of the sectors most affected by the crisis generated by the new coronavirus pandemic which has made reservations start in advance for conflicting indications on the websites of the Ministry of Economic Development and Invitalia.
The click day of discord
Immediately after accreditation on the Invitalia website, many spas opened the booking of the bonus, asking citizens to book. In fact, overcoming the click day of 8 November with pre-bookings provided by the website of the Ministry of Economic Development which invited “citizens to request the bonus, starting from 8 November, by contacting the accredited spas, whose list it is available online, continuously updated, on the bonusterme.invitalia.it website ». They actually obeyed the faq n. 9 on the Invitalia website, which instead reads as follows: “The citizen can make the request for booking the bonus after the spa has been accredited, knowing that the spa can process the request starting from 8 November, at 12.00, the date on which the booking platform opens ». So the click day at this point is only for accredited centers to enter the data of the booked customers and not to book to take advantage of the bonus. A misunderstanding that has infuriated those who are left out of the 200 euro bookings.
“The games have already been played, there is no competition”
The protest of potential customers started immediately, because there are already spas already overbooked that no longer accept pre-bookings. Already the day before the click day. “It is impossible to make a reservation in Bagno di Romagna, as all the establishments are already sold out for the pre-bookings already received on their sites”, reported, among others, Dino Biserni, reader of the Sole 24 Ore. «It seems to me that there is a stretch in the procedure. I believed that we should all show up at the starting line on day 8, and then “play” with it all in order to have the fateful reservation, hoping for the best possible connection. This is not the case, the games seem to me to have been done by now, there is no competition ». In reality, overbooking occurs in the most famous spas and in regions that have few accredited spas. Certainly, given that there are individual spas that have received 25 thousand requests, the limit of 265 thousand bonuses throughout Italy covered by the 53 million euro fund available has already passed.
There are 186 accredited spas
186 spas are accredited on the Invitalia bonus site, with Veneto playing the lion’s share with 74 accredited centers. Then there is Campania with 26, Emilia Romagna with 21, Tuscany with 15. Four regions – Basilicata, Calabria, Liguria and Piedmont – have only one accredited center. they have two Abruzzo, Umbria and Valle d’Aosta.
Overbooking at the Terme dei Papi in Viterbo
No possibility to book, at least for now, at Baths of the Popes of Viterbo. “The form for the compilation is closed, you can no longer register”, they explain over the phone. Registrations were closed due to an “excess of requests”: in two days they received 25 thousand. From November 8 to 12 they will be massively on the computer for the registration of each individual customer on the portal of the spa bonus. «We will proceed in chronological order. We closed – explains a courteous employee – for reasons of seriousness towards the customer, avoiding deceiving people. This does not exclude a reopening of the form when we have completed the insertion of those who signed up ».