How to Avoid Getting Ripped off With Self Catering Villas Abroad

tleefox

Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen.

Myself and my better half are in the process of booking our honeymoon for next year, and are looking at hiring a villa at a place called Captiva Island on the Gulf Coast of the USA.

We have found a website:

http://www.holiday-rentals.co.uk/

Which effectively acts as a search engine for properties. I have emailed a few people to enquire about their properties, and one has come back saying that if we wish to proceed she will put us in touch with their booking agent who sorts out the necessary paperwork.

This is the first time we have booked accommodation such as this, so how can we be sure we are not being ripped off and that the website and the owner's booking agent actually exist and we are not going to turn up at Miami Airport with nowhere to stay, having lost a masive deposit?

Would appreciate any pointers / thoughts.

Nobjocki

www.vrbo.com/search?q=Captiva&from-date=Arrival&from-date=&to-date=Departure&to-date=


VRBO is the biggest site for holiday rental property in the USA and
100% cent safe.
You deal directly with owners.
Also, if you're going to Captiva you might want to consider flying in Tampa as it's much easier to get to Captiva from there and avoids going through Miami which can be a bit of a nightmare.

eslick

Nobjocki wrote: »

100% cent safe.

can only be 100% safe if you take out the additional insurance, quite cheap though.

Would recommend vrbo used them loads of times and dont forget to haggle the price always comes down your link is actually the UK version, think when we looked there wasnt as much choice though.

Some of the homeowners use rental agents to manage the property just using vrbo and the likes to advertise the business. If they have an agent all the better as they normally accept credit cards.

Miami can be a bit of a pain but in may we went and went straight through security not even a queue.

You probably want a hotel near miami for your first night, try hotwire or priceline for some good bargains, we got a $300 room for $89 in May.

mchale

If you look on the ad it tells you how long they have been advertising with holiday-rentals.

lagoslife

Homeaway offers a rental guarantee plus additional insurance you can take out to protect bookings;
http://www.holiday-rentals.co.uk/info/travel-tips/traveller-protection?icid=IL_TravellerProtection_P_T_HPTile_TravellerProtection_LPRO_TravellerProtection

"HomeAway.co.uk does its utmost to protect against fraudulent listings on our sites. However, in the highly unlikely case you should fall victim to a scam on our site and are not covered by other means, HomeAway.co.uk will reimburse up to 50% of the rental fee you have paid, up to a maximum of £700."

You could also do some background checks, see my reply on this post
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/2500269