Ways of booking vacation rentals

[Pauline]

I spent the last several days looking at vacation rentals in Kandersteg, Switzerland.

The tourist office website had a lot of listings but everything looked dreary and the site was not easy to use. Still it is good to check to see if they have better prices on places you find elsewhere.

HomeAway had only a few listings for Kandersteg. I found one that I liked and then searched to see if they had their own website (they didn't). As another poster mentioned recently, HomeAway said you had to pay the whole amount up front (but he found that after booking that he did not have to). But the HomeAway price was higher that the same place on two other sites.

AirBnb had the apartment I was interested in, plus several other listings for Kandersteg (more than HomeAway). They had a couple of others that looked good. When I started the booking process for the apartment I had to pay the whole amount up front, with a cancellation fee of 50% of the booking amount.

I found the same apartment on Booking.com for almost the same price as AirBnb, but you pay nothing until one month before arrival!

I used booking.com and immediately had a response from the apartment owner. I had a few questions (how close is that train line? Not close. And my usual, do you use synthetic air fresheners. He doesn't.) and he answered them all immediately.

I used to be a fan of HomeAway and have used them a lot but their website is getting dated and I HATE that they run google ads on the site! This junks up the page and makes it clear they are going for every penny they can get - isn't it enough that owners pay to be listed? Plus they just got bought out by someone big - Expedia? I forget.

AirBnb has a much better website. Previously I have found them to be more expensive, but this time they were not. They clearly list what you pay - weekly rent, cleaning fee, airbnb booking fee. I like that you get to set up a profile as a renter, so owners know who you are. Their presentation of photos and information is excellent.

I only went with Booking.com because of the booking terms and because the price was the same. It looks like Booking.com might be upping their game for vacation rentals. I hear owners saying bad things about them and until now I have only used them for hotels, but this experience was very good. Within minutes after booking I was emailing with the apartment owner.

 

[Kathy]

Pauline, this is a good summary of a search process. Many owners and agencies now list their properties on multiple sites to try to maximize their visibility and bookings... of course this all gets factored in to their rate. I now consider this from the perspective of both a renter and an owner. This year we rented three places in Europe... found one through VRBO (Homeaway), one from a local agency, and one from an owner's website. We list our Provence apartment on VRBO and a local rent-by-owner website. We've chosen to continue to pay an upfront annual fee to list on VRBO and handle payments directly with the renters, not through VRBO.

Other owners tell me they pay an 18% commission on booking.com!

Many rentals are also now listed on TripAdvisor.

I hope people won't give up on VRBO! I've got to make a decision about continuing to list for another year in just a few days...

 

[Jan55612]

I still go to HomeAway first when I search for rentals, Kathy. If the owner has a private site, I usually book through it, as I did recently for an apartment in Paris when I rented from Frenchy Rentals. I have booked an apartment in Barcelona for six weeks this winter. It will be my first Sabbatical Homes rental. From what I can tell, owners are free to set whatever terms (form of payment, timing of payment, cancellation policy, etc.) on Sabbatical Homes. Our Barcelona apartment owner uses the apartment as a second home and lives in Toronto, so I had to send a U.S. check to Toronto for half of the rental price when I booked, but was offered the option of paying the remainder in cash (euros) upon arrival. I will report back on the process after we've been there a while.

 

[Anne]

I hope people won't give up on VRBO! I've got to make a decision about continuing to list for another year in just a few days...

I'm definitely not giving up on VRBO! I don't support AirBnb, so greatly appreciate having other options like VRBO and HomeAway (although those have the same owner now, I think? Expedia?) I've also used Flipkey (TripAdvisor) a couple times, both positive experiences. I recently learned of this site - ConnectingRentals - they have very few properties but I'll check them out more closely next time I travel (which isn't likely to be before 2018....but one never knows!)

 

[chachalaca]

I use everything! First I consider everything you all have recommended. Then I just google what I want in hopes of finding a gem listed by owner. Sometimes I've found something, other times not. Finally, I use Gitesdefrance.com, VRBO, Homeaway, etc. to get ideas and see if independent listings are available and sleuth out those listings if possible. It's true that often something shows up on multiple sites at different rates. I've looked at Sabbatical Homes before, Jan, and I'm interested in your report afterwards!!