During the planning process, when to book?

[marion46]

I would personally book the villa of my choice first explaining to the owner that you may need flexibility a few days either way as you haven't yet booked your flights.

[FraserLynn]

limited flight choice and a huge choice of villas = commit to your flight first. Being flexible on flight dates can have a big impact on costs, it makes no difference with the cost of the villa.

[Katys Grandad]

I agree with Fraser - there aren't any 'sale' periods with direct booked accommodation so it makes sense to get full value from flight sales and then look for accommodation. Having rented in Florida around 60 times over the years, I have to say that I've never had a problem finding suitable accommodation because there are so many similar properties and a limited number of renters to fill them. Equally, car rental can be done almost at the last minute.

A bit off-topic here, but I've frequently thought how much more convenient it would be to be able to search the linked rental sites above by entering the dates you're thinking about first rather than having to view each property individually to look if it's available. If you search by date you can see just what the level of availability is and then make your decision on what and to do first and when to do it. I personally find trawling through all the individual property listings to see if they're free on a particular date a bit frustrating at times.

[blott]

<blockquote id="quote" class="ffs">quote:Originally posted by Katys Grandad
A bit off-topic here, but I've frequently thought how much more convenient it would be to be able to search the linked rental sites above by entering the dates you're thinking about first rather than having to view each property individually to look if it's available. If you search by date you can see just what the level of availability is and then make your decision on what and to do first and when to do it. I personally find trawling through all the individual property listings to see if they're free on a particular date a bit frustrating at times.[/quote]But what you're describing is exactly how OV and its sister sites work.

You make an enquiry with some speculative dates - you can say they're flexible if you wish - and the home owners with your dates available will respond to you.

Using this method will find more homes than looking through all the homes anyway since some home owners choose not to display an availability calender.

Unless you want to, you don't have to search through anything as the home owners with your dates available will respond to your reqouest.

[Katys Grandad]

So are you saying that if I have flights booked in, say, the first 2 weeks in March I can put those dates into the site and it will tell me only which homes are available during that period? (from which I can then choose).

I can't see how to do that but no doubt you'll point me in the right direction.

[steph_goodrum]

The site won't do that but what happens is when an enquiry is made that you check the "ask all owners" box, a request is generated which goes out to all of the villas on that site, who then only respond if they have the dates available you are looking for, so you will ge sent a series of emails with more detailed info about each villa available , personal website etc. to give you more info to base your selection on.

[Katys Grandad]

<blockquote id="quote" class="ffs">quote:Originally posted by steph_goodrum
The site won't do that but what happens is when an enquiry is made that you check the "ask all owners" box, a request is generated which goes out to all of the villas on that site, who then only respond if they have the dates available you are looking for, so you will ge sent a series of emails with more detailed info about each villa available , personal website etc. to give you more info to base your selection on.
[/quote]Thanks for clarifying Steph - I didn't think you could.

What would be good is to be able to see what my options are before sending a request meaning that I'm not then waiting until I receive a response to see if I can even consider that property. My (admittedly limited) experience of using the sites is that you can wait a while to see what your options are and things might change during that time.

Not a big issue, but for me that would be as a useful improvement.

[No Shoes]

I absolutely agree with Katys Grandad and surely it would save the owners a lot of time too. They would only have to reply to a more targeted set of enquiries.

I hate to say this - but - I would always start looking with a website that offered exactly that means of searching!

[steph_goodrum]

<blockquote id="quote" class="ffs">quote:Originally posted by No Shoes
I absolutely agree with Katys Grandad and surely it would save the owners a lot of time too. They would only have to reply to a more targeted set of enquiries.

I hate to say this - but - I would always start looking with a website that offered exactly that means of searching!
[/quote]

the owners do only reply to those where they can offer the dates requested but in order for it to work as KG has suggested every owner would have to have an up to date availability at all times and for various reasons many of us choose not to.

[Andrena]

It could cause problems with a villa owner, where if you booked a villa with specific dates and then could not get the flights and requested different dates for which the owner did not have availability. You would however have paid a deposit and the owner is not obliged to refund this, they may have turned down another booking for those dates. I am not saying that an owner might not be prepared to do this but most of them do state in their conditions that deposits are not refundable, so be careful. Therefore I would always get my flights first and then find a villa. We have our own villa and have to organise our own dates around the bookings we have for our villa so we are just like renters, we can't always get what we want in both flights and villa.

Andrena