Sue’s Guide To Booking A Holiday Home
If you want to book a holiday apartment or villa you won’t find any shortage of properties online. But make sure you look beyond the glossy pictures, five-star reviews and slick websites.
Some holidaymakers pay their money only to find their holiday home doesn’t exist, isn’t available or even belongs to someone else!
With lots of holiday rental websites popping up it can be hard to weed out the genuine places from the fake ones so here are some savvy checks you can carry out…
If you’re searching on sites like HomeAway or TripAdvisor, check what form of payment protection is offered and stick to the rules. So don’t get duped into paying by bank transfer, whatever excuse a property owner or agent gives you. Always pay by credit card as this means you have legal protection if the cost is over £100. Or pay by PayPal, which is more secure.
Using a local agent may seem more secure than a private rental, but while agents may boast credentials, check out any trade groups they claim to belong to, as in some cases they may just pay a fee for their listing.
Once I’ve narrowed down my search, one check I always do is to look online at a map of the area. If you use the street view you can see that the property exists, isn’t boarded up, and that any view on offer isn’t over a building site – or next door to a nightclub!