Great 'Cheap Holiday Rentals' Hunt. How to grab fab self-catering properties for less

webrow

Yeah As Cumbrian78 said transferring money directly into a bank account offers no protection, the last one I rented we paid through paypal, that way you are protected.

helebark

When looking for a good deal on villas in Majorca we discovered that some internet sites automatically assumed dates for our half terms that appear, for next year at least to be wrong, so we got a villa for over a £1000 per week cheaper.

DAMIT_3

I actually own a Fabulous South Facing LAKE SIDE Villa Very close to Disney.

I am just one of an estimate 25,000 owners, mostly British, who own and rent out throughout the year in the Orlando Disney area of Florida.

The public in general do not know about our Fabulous villas at fantastic bargain prices all year round!

You can rent a Large FIVE double sized Bedroom home with Private Heated Pool with all the facilities, Games room, Plasma TVs, TV in all bedrooms, SPA, sun loungers/deck, small gated community, like mine from between £500 - £800 per week inclusive of local Taxes.

That could be as little as £7 per person per night!!!

Go Direct to the owners just google it!

golddustmedia

I've just sold my self catering holiday business so I don't mind sharing tips on how customers could get the best deals out of me.

I was registered with a holiday agency but of course also took private bookings, which realistically were the greater volume of my business but at less money than the agency bookings.

1. Going DIRECT is the best chance of getting a deal. I prominently mentioned the name of my holiday apartment in the text description on the agency website. Using this customers could "google" and find my own website. Likewise direct enquries got better prices as my agency charged 22% commission! So even offering 15% less for direct bookings I was still better off!
2. School holidays are out. The school holidays are the bread and butter for SC holiday owners and as much as 75% of annual income comes from the 12 weeks of school hols. These nearly always book in advance and at the full asking price. Even when there is late availability we're reluctant to discount them as you know you'll pretty much always get a booking at a premium rate.
3. Cash is king. When booking owners want security so booking in advance chances are discounts will be slim but something that always greased the wheel with me was to offer a small deposit in advance by cheque (10-20%) but offer the balance in cash on arrival.
4. Less cleaning = lower costs. The last thing any holiday manager really wants is to find a dirty holiday home, every piece of linen and towels used and every room used etc. So if your group is small (just a couple) say so and state you won't use any second bedrooms. Perhaps offer to take your own towels or even linen or give some assurance you'll leave the place clean. I had some customers who visited every few months or annually but was happy to give them a sizeable discount having found they'd left the place so clean I had only a minimal linen change and tidy before I could let the next guests stay. Likewise easy is an incentive, anything that I don't have to do (such as meet you for check-in or setup a cot) is less work for me!
5. In-fill the dates. I had a full daily availability on my website but obviously had to sell to set dates (7 nts began Saturdays, weekends were Fri-Mon and mid week Mon-Fri). Of course this meant that sometimes I had a booking for a weekend but nothing mid week until the following weekend. Where I had odd numbers of days like 5 nts etc it was rare to get an agency booking so I was always happy to take a discounted private booking to try and get back to back bookings. SO, ask the holiday owner what vacant dates they have to fill between bookings. Typically if 7 nts was £450 with me I would end up doing 5nts infill for half that. Basically an empty holiday home makes no money, but do remember every owner does have their minimum operating costs (the costs for cleaning, consumeables, electricity etc) so bear in mind there comes a monetary figure where it's better to leave empty than take a booking. My minimum was £100 for 3 nts on a 2 bed apartment (cleaners and fuel etc would be about £50).
6. Courtesy is key on the phone. Think about your personality before you phone or enquire about a deal. Understandably holiday letting is a risk to a holiday owner. I was always MUCH happier to offer a deal to a friendly pensioner couple or polite professional couple rather than a noisy family looking for a cheap deal. It's just a case of common sense. Given that I had never met guests before you have to assess the likely risk of finding damage or a dirty apartment by what you can learn on the phone in a brief chat. So I would suggest before launching into "what's your best price for these dates" you ask about the property, be interested, talkative and convey the idea that you're responsible! After all when asked the price as owner I had full choice. Ok there was a guide but if I decided in 60 secs on the phone I want this person to rent it and not the person who emailed 5 minutes ago then I'm going to offer you a discount to try and get your business and not have to pursue the unknown quantity on the email. Sounds bad but when I'd get someone on the phone enquiring about the best deal for their teenage son etc there was no way I would offer a discount.
7. eBay for your holiday! Lastly, when I had odd dates within the next few weeks I cleared the real bargains on ebay. So get searching!

So there you have it, as an owner my best deals went to people who phoned me nicely to fill in vacant dates I had between bookings and who paid cash on arrival.

fluffygrue

I've always found Homelidays to have the best s/c deals, but haven't yet booked with them.

Melanie

petesellit

Don't forget the thread of MoneySavers offering discounts to other Money savers, it's under Home & Play > UK Holidays, Days Out & Entertainments ...
but there are many MoneySavers including me who are offering money off Villas abroad for members of this site.

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=1680959

welfy09

Have to show my support for 'homelidays' (not allowed to post link as a newbie) here. It can take a while to search through to find correct location and budget at the same time, but the map function is really helpful. Have used them three times now - twice in France and once in Spain, usually ended up paying around EUR50 per night, but can vary depending on time.

Only issue I have had with booking direct with owners is deposit - most want bank transfer which is costly, have always managed to confirm by sending a GBP cheque as a deposit which has then been returned to me on arrival when I paid the full balance in cash.

Re: leaving until the last minute - bit risky if you have flights booked. Spent ages emailing owners for a trip to Marseille a few weeks ago and only one was still available, so was a bit wary about what it might be like! But it was lovely, owners very helpful etc.

I think booking direct with owners has got to be the best way - you're not paying a middle man, and they really do tend to want to bend over backwards to accomodate you in my experience.

karendb

Andorra is great for renting in August as it's off season for them. We booked a ski apartment couple of years ago with Homelidays and had a great holiday - beautiful views, plenty to do for the kids etc.. We flew with Ryanair to Girona and hired a car. However, it's easily possible to do a ferry-drive and do a stop-off at a Formule1 etc.

beaujo

webrow wrote: »

I've found looking on Gumtree really good for holidays accommodation. Also my friend has a timeshare and is with a timeshare company, they sell off their apartments for late availability really cheap, and they are all over, don't usually have UK apartments though, don't think I'm allowed to put details here.

If anyone wants to know more about getting last minute availability, rather than put details on here message me and I might be able to help!;D

I have just got back from a 1 week in Cagliari in Sardinia. Me, Partner and his 3 kids. We ended up spending £1050 for all of us including spendos. We rented an apartment (£300), it was close to the beach, bought in all supplies from supermarket, spent days on beach, made sandwichs for lunch etc. Ryanair flights were £160 for all of us, we only checked in 2 bags as we only needed limited stuff for beach etc and apartment had washing machine! Found apartment on gumtree. Fantastic holiday!! Normally we would spend this per person but both me and my partner lost our jobs earlier this year but I'm back in work now, so we had to slash the budget. I think I would always holiday like this in future. I love budgeting now!!!

I am wondering if you could share the contact details of the apt where you spent your holiday. I am still trying to get an apt for my holiday in Sardinia. Many thanks.

Simon_c_2

Here's a trick I've used several times.
If you book direct with a European holiday company for the first of last week of the school holidays, or half term, than it can be much cheaper than booking the *same* accommodation through a UK company.

We've used Yelloh camping for self catering (large static vans basically) on the French Med or in Brittany and saved well over £500 compared with going through a company like Siblu.
We've also used Landal Green parks, which is very like center parks, but based in Holland and well over half the price. Even cheaper if you can find a week which is UK school holidays and not a bank holiday/school holiday over there.

Edit: Also, if you're going in School holidays, consider Driving. The ferry deals on the Dover-Calais route are still quite reasonable in the summer hols, and the tunnel accept clubcards tokens. And most of all, there's no price hike on petrol or motorway tolls during the summer hols We worked it out as about the same cost to drive so the south of france as to fly (out of summer hols) but when you add airport transfers, or a hire car, it works out much cheaper to take your own car.