Booking directly with owners to save at additional fees

In my previous post, I talked about the properties of booking direct holidays through a third -party website such as AirBNB or VRBO. I concluded that listing sites are useful to be able to do research, which properties are available, but it is reported that, once you find the property of your choice, it can be beneficial to book directly with the owner, assuming that you are working with a reputed owner, of course. And to some extent, you can get a good idea on it from reviews on listing sites. Listing that contains a significant number of reviews and consistent scores are more likely to be reputed owners (or managers/agencies) behind them, which are much less review or inconsistent score than those.

Direct booking can save you significant amount. People may not realize this, but on a total booking of more than £ 1,000, it is very possible that its about 200 pounds may be made of additional fees. This is a fairly important amount that can be placed towards other behaviors while you are on leave.

But how do you go about contacting a owner directly if you have a listing? Read for more information…

What you don't do

First of all, let's start with what you don't. Just do not give a message to the owner through the listing site, ask to take the conversation off-site so that you book directly. Third party sites can monitor the messages you sent and usually restrict email addresses, telephone numbers and websites, at least until booking has been done through their platforms. They have no doubt that it is to protect guests and host privacy and security, but also because – if you book directly with them – they do not get their commission. By trying to provoke their rules, you will be slapped on the wrist or you can also take the risk of being banned from the site in the question.

So how do you go directly to contact a owner, what do you want to do?

Try some basic detective work

Suppose you get a property that you really like in the village of “XYZ”. Go to a search engine (or social media) and just find some for “Xyz Housing” or “XYZ apartment” (if it is an apartment) or “Xyz Country House Housing”, “XYZ Rivaruside Holiday Home”, etc. Look through the search results and you can only find direct contact details for the property in the question.

Try other listing sites

All listing sites do not restrict access to the owner's own contact details. Some sites charge the owners instead charge a listing fee (rather than taking commission) and do not restrict the owner's ability to see the own contact details. Other sites – such as local tourist boards or commerce websites – only owner can provide contact details.

Try some more advanced detective work

Look at the listing for the property a little more closely. There are all other clues of all types that can help you detect the owner independently. It may be the name of the owner (often you are given the first name only, but it can still be in some examples, especially if it is a fairly specific name), perhaps it is a picture that allows you to tell you to tell which road the property is on, perhaps it is something that is mentioned in the lesson. Listing can be filled with a stunning number of clues!

Try to search for specific phrases

As humans, we are naturally lazy. If a listing site asks a owner for a copy for its property, the possibility that the owner will only use the text they already have, rather than that only to create something new for that one site. There is a possibility, they will only copy and paste the text from their website – if they have one – for use on other sites.

This means that you can find a phrase on a listing, copy it and paste it in Google Search, and to find that exact phrase, to put a quotes mark around it. It is not many words, but ideally a small piece of text that is unique and specific to the property you want to contact directly. You may be surprised how many times the same lesson rejuvenates on various websites and you can just find your own website or social media page of the owner.

Try a reverse image search

When you are in a list you like, you can download an image (or a URL of an image) by right clicking on it. Then you can use it to find where the same image is used on other websites – known as reverse image searching. Sites such as Tineye, Google Images/Google lens and Yandex images are worth searching for reverse images.

A last word of warning

In a sense of balance, it is important that I include this last note. When booking directly, you can usually make a savings, and often one important one, but it is important that you know about the implications. First and foremost, whatever security you have will not be. This may include anything from safe payment to dispute resolution in the event of problems with your booking. You will be subject to the individual cancellation policy of the owner instead of the platform, which may be different. It is important that you conduct proper hard work and any compromise you have. And we strongly recommend that you do appropriate travel and cancellation insurance. Although you choose to book, we wish you a wonderful holiday!