Holiday Rental Websites- How Do You Know You Can Trust Them?

rebl43

Hi, I have been looking into renting an appartment via a holiday rental website, but how do you know you are not going to get ripped off by the owner of the appartment?
Any advice/ help gratefully recieved!:D

J_B

As a villa owner myself, how do I know I'm not gonna get ripped off by you?

I don't :-)

You send me your hundreds of pounds and then I post you the keys to my 200K villa, so who's taking more risk???

It's a two edged sword really, you gotta just go with your gut feelings and trust the person in question.

Either that, or go and stay in some 'faceless eurotel' in the middle of EuroTown, with a full abta guarantee.

Does that make sense????

:question:

Diamond78

Hi rebl43,what sites have you been looking at?It depends how you want to do it really.I use to work in a travel agent and all the companies we dealt with are ABTA protected.Check the site to see if its ABTA protected.You also have to be careful as sometimes some companies can go bust-this has happened in the past.Or you can look up in the loot as i have seen lots of villas for rent but like the above post said its a 2 way thing.
The big travel companies like thomas cook, thomson, first choice, cosmos are just a few that do villas.Sorry couldnt help much.

buyitall

I have also wondered about the risk, but have always found independent rentals to be first class. Presumably, they wouldn't last long on the well-established rental sites if they were continually getting poor feedback? This year in particular, we had to cancel a holiday due to my mother's ill health and I thought we might have had a problem with our insurance due to the 'unofficial' nature of the booking. However, the owners were a pleasure to deal with and provided the necessary documentation much more quickly than your average package firm might have done.

rebl43

Thanks for your pov's.
I have been looking at holiday-rentals.co.uk, and have just put this into the search on mse and several forum members have used it by the looks of things.

Diamond78

why dont you pm the other members.Im sure if they have used it is ok.But before you book check all is legit, pm the other mse users and see what they can advise you.Where are you off to, i hope somewhere sunny.

rebl43

Good idea! I'm off to New York for a week in June:D

Diamond78

aww thats lovely.I would love to go and my son really wants to go as he has seen it in movies but saying that he wants to go everywhere, trouble is his only 5 and a bit poor.But flights are getting cheaper and cheaper and I would want to go with a lot of spending money to shop.Good luck and let me know how you get on.Who knows I might save for that to go next year.

rebl43

Ahh thanks! I am going with a friend as my husband didn't want to go!!!!! Mad thing! He said he will stop at home with the kids so I can go on a girlie shopping holiday:j

Diamond78

well your a mum hun and you deserve it-would you not consider a hotel?I hope you have a fab time, i know you will as all the ppl i know that have been have loved it and come back with loads of goodies,just make sure you dont go with a full suitcase, got half empty so you can come back loaded hehe

jaymac_2

I've used holiday-rentals.com many times and have never had any problems. I'd say go for it!