Self Catering Owners Direct

Herbs_and_Flowers

If you are looking for a self catering holiday through Owners Direct, think again. They are adding a 6% booking fee and dismantling the direct contact with owners by using an automated accept or decline system. Huge outcry on Trust Pilot if you want to research further. On line booking is also through a separate company they say is in the UK but is in fact in Ireland. You can find a post from a lawyer on Trust Pilot explaining the issue(s). There are other sites where you can book direct with owners without Experian/HomeAway and their American subsidiaries getting involved. Sadly they have acquired what was an excellent site and are now just milking it for all the extra money they can get... and you pay!

SammySue

Thank you for posting the problems that customers are experiencing with Owners Direct. We have been advertising with them for the past 10 years and this last year has been terrible for us owners too.
We all complained about the 6 % charge now levied on holiday makers and it is not an obvious one either. You have to click to see the breakdown of your visit to see the charge. The best thing to do, is to try and find the owners own website, which should be somewhere on the listing for the property you would like to stay at. They will probably not charge you this extra fee. We don't!

As Owners we have been charged additional fees too & glitches in their software have been awful since they have been taken over by Expedia. Apparently they don't have funds to make these software changes but they do for the extra booking fees.

This summer, we have had the lowest bookings ever and we will definitely be leaving Owners Direct. It no longer does what it says on the tin.

isplumm

Hi

Others are going the same way - airbnb is now testing out different costs models for owners where the rate of commission increases based on the cancellation policies of owners - the best commission rates are where the owner allows cancellation on the day - which for a gite owner is nuts. If your weekly rate is £1000, then the difference between the best commission & the worst is £20 - which over the season can add up.

I use cheznous.com and have my own website - but finding my website can be difficult.

Mark

Heedtheadvice

I have used owners direct for several bookings in the past. Thank you for posting the info. I will try and bypass in the future. Direct is preferable for me. Presumably the old model worked and was profitable so it does seem a case of milking it.

Given the experience recently of low-cost holidays, my opinion is now to go either package (with the extra cover involved) or fully independent (flights covered -where used) and value for money from interested owners. Just a plea to the latter to allow credit card or PayPal bookings and not request bank transfers especially in advance!!