Villa Rental Websites, any recommendations ?

[Dodsy]

I am planning a December holiday for 2 families (4 adults, 4 kids) to Tenerife. Normally we would book apartments but this year we would like to see if we can rent a villa that will hold all of us. I have no experience of renting villas and there seem to be 101 websites offering rentals and I cant tell which ones are reputable.

I've read a number of rental horror stories online but I know you cant always take the bad (or indeed the good) reviews at face value.

So it would be really helpful if anyone can recommend a rental website (or sites) that you've had a good experience with to get me started.

I've already looked on James Villas but direct rentals appear to offer a big saving over their prices and I'm keen to keep the price down if possible.

Cheers

[Puggit]

We tend to use 2 sites. James Villas are great at including the flight costs to make an affordable deal, and then Ownersdirect is great for villa only prices.

We have also advertised on ownersdirect for 5 years, and the clientele have been pretty good with only the occasional idiots and no serious damage.

[Trustmeimadoctor]

ownersdirect used them a few times before

[-Pete-]

We've been happy with http://www.holiday-rentals.co.uk/ in the past.

[Marti99]

I've used owners direct, holidaylettings and holidayrentals. Never had a problem. I think they all tell you how long they have advertised the property with them for. A good guide.

Edited by Marti99 on Monday 7th May 09:16

[SLacKer]

I have used vrbo.com for my trips to the states. They cover other parts of the world though including Europe.

[Dodsy]

Thanks everyone, plenty to go on there

[Simon Brooks]

We own and rent a villa on the algarve ( which thankfully is fully booked) we did however rent places before owning via owners direct, without any problems at all, one of things to remember about owner/renters is that they rely on repeat business and recommendations, whereas the larger organisations rely on a collective reputation which is unlikely to be affected by a few bad experiences

[Bonefish Blues]

From experience, Villa Plus have always been very good quality: http://www.villaplus.com/tenerife/

[LuS1fer]

There are certain things to bear in mind with villas and it's largely how you're going to pay.

I have use both www.ownersdirect.co.uk and www.holidaylettings.co.uk, the latter allowing you to review the property afterwards which is always useful. However, both these sites are largely "cash up front by bank transfer", well in advance of travel, and usually a fairly large damages deposit which is of no use when you'd rather have it for holiday money.

I have used Villaplus in the past for good value out of season villas and they are very good but very expensive "in season".

My favourite is www.villarenters.co.uk for the following reasons:
(1) You can pay by credit card so you have more protection AND you can budget the cost over a few months if you obtain an introductory interest free card beforehand.
(2) They don't charge you to use the credit card (unlike the evil blood-sucking thieving skanky airlines...and....breathe)
(3) They don't ask for a security deposit (which can be up to 300 Euros "payable on arrival"), they instead charge you about £25 for an insurance policy. You lose the £25 obviously but you can keep your holiday money and there are no arguments over damage.
(4) They tend to have a no penalty cancellation if you do it within a certain period so it's easier to juggle.
(5) They have a much better system of having shown availability and near instant confirmation you have the booking so allowing you to sort out flights at the same time instead of waiting for an e-mail from the owner.

This year we have also used Solmar Villas. Again, the booking system is as above though some villas are also expensive. I was less impressed when I tried to cancel a villa with them within 8 hours of booking it and they wanted to charge a £30 administration fee for the non-event of my booking/cancellation. As it turns out, I kept the booking but because of that irritation, I would go Villarenters in future.

The great thing about booking private villas these days is that by using Google Street View, you can "tour the area" around the villa first so there are no evil surprises.

We've been booking villas for many a year now and have yet to have a villa which has proved unacceptable (nearest was a cheapy "budget flat" with a generator that fired up of a night) but regardless, way better than any hotel we've ever used and we'd never go back to that.