For those looking to book a vacation rental, there are ways to find cheaper deals for the same places available on most the well-known vacation rental sites. That’s right. We have found a proven way to get up to 25% off a vacation rental property when booking your holiday. The trick to doing this is very simple, and once you read this article, you will see why it makes sense.
Who would want to pay more, when you can pay less?
Read on if you want to get up to 25% off your vacation rental bookings
One of the main reasons many of us book using websites such as Agoda is because when you are searching for properties in a area – let’s say Miami for example, you are going to search for using keyword phrases such as “Vacation Rental Miami”.
Sites like Agoda will of course come high up in the search results because these companies spend a lot of money on marketing. The way they make a return on investment on that marketing budget is by charging a fee to the vacation renal property owner when a booking is made via their website.
We have a way you can avoid paying those fees and book directly with a vacation rental website. You can then get a private apartment or house to yourself for a fraction of the price you would pay for a hotel. Also, vacation rentals are popular because they offer a more local vibe compared to booking a hotel. In many cases you will be living among the locals, and shopping for food in local supermarkets, which in itself can be a lot of fun when comparing prices and brands.
Keep reading because this now gets very interesting
Use the Name of a Well-Known Vacation Rental Website Builder in Your Searches
On the other hand, if you know the names of some of the well-known vacation website builders, then you have a secret weapon. You will be able to search for people that have their own private website for their vacation rental. For example, Lodgify arguably the number one vacation rental website builder online today.
Those that own a vacation rental and use a Lodgify site will be using the Lodgify code. That means within that code the name Lodgify will come up numerous times. Website such as Google, Yahoo, Bing as well as Social Media platforms such as Facebook will index the code, the location of the property, and the brand name of the website owner’s vacation rental business.
How does this help you hunt these independent websites down?
As the search engines will be associating the website’s location with Lodgify, you just need to search for “Lodgify Vacation Rental Miami”. Scroll down a bit past the Lodgify website rankings and you will find a several websites that have vacation rentals in Miami – the first one we found in this list was Battuta Rentals multilanguage website that uses the Lodgify vacation rental website builder.
Why Is Booking Directly with The Website Cheaper?
Many of the properties available in the website you find will also be available on other vacation accommodation bookings sites such as Agoda or Expedia. However, those websites will charge the property owner a premium, which is usually 20% plus they will also add a percentage booking fee on top, which is usually around 3%.
On the other hand, if you are booking directly with the website owner, their price will be lower because they do not have to pay a 20% charge. Furthermore, you will be saving yourself more money as there will usually not be a booking fee added on top.
How Do I Know the Website Is Trustworthy?
Now the method we just showed shared with you is tried and tested. That said, one question that crops up a lot (one that we had to ask ourselves). The way we got around this was by using the real time chat tool that all Lodgify websites provide their vacation rental clients. We say that we are interested in booking their accommodation, but we would like to see another website the property is listed on like Agoda or Airbnb.
99.9% of the time the property is listed on Airbnb, HomeAway, FlipKey, VRBO, and many of the other vacation rental website. From here, you can look at the feedback being given by guests as well as compare the price via booking directly with the website versus making a reservation via a third-party website like HomeAway.
If you see that there is not much difference in price, then you have to be a little cheeky. Let’s look at a scenario. You see the website is listed on HomeAway, but the price difference between booking via Airbnb and booking directly is marginal. The next step is to check what service fees HomeAway charge. We can tell you right now Airbnb and HomeAway take 20% of the booking fee plus add a 3% booking charge.
You can then calculate the Airbnb price and contact the website owner again. Say that you know Airbnb charge 20%, is there a chance of a discount in order to book directly with the website? Obviously, we all have own way of approaching this situation, so it is up to you how you ask for the discount. In some cases you will get up to 25% off, other 15% off. Either way, you are making cost savings that gives you that little bit extra to spend while on holiday or makes your holiday far more affordable.
There you have it. All you need to do is a little due diligence in your research. If a property costs $75 a night and you would be paying $750 for a 10 day stay, you could actually save yourself 15% to 25%, which is $112.50 to $187.5 respectably. Plus, the more expensive the property per night or the longer your stay the higher your cost savings will be.
