I’ve used a few over the years. These seem trouble free. If you can get a direct number for a property sometimes you can get it cheaper. But a lot of the “single property” owners don’t want the hassle and just use an agent.
I’ve tried Air BnB, bit mixed.
The prices of all of these have gone through the roof in recent times.
It was only a few years ago that I could get an off season week in a small basic property for around £300. I can’t get anything under £500 now.
AirBNB no longer seems that good a deal to me. It also depends on owner.
I started using AirBNB for Friedrichshafen Rally after the hotel we had used since 2000 went bust during COVID.
Me and mates had a fabulous AirBNB flat in Eriskirche in 2022. Good owner, nice facilities and 4 sharing it was cheap. Owner lived 15mins away and was there to meet me and hand over key. No longer listed on AirBNB or I would have gone back.
2023 was just me and Paul W6PNG. AirBNB flat was pricey but was basement flat so very cool in German summer heat Nice facilities and key pickup/return and contact was easy. Everything worked perfectly in flat. Again no longer listed or I would have used it again.
2024 again me and Paul W6PNG had nice flat in Tetnang. Dealing with owner was a pain… he never replied to messages unless you sent 3 or 4. Key collection was from a shop in town but staff knew nothing about key. Stressful start. Facilities were OK. TV didn’t work but it should have. Also Wifi only used WPS. Not supported on modern phones like mine and Paul’s. Managed to get my laptop to connect. Paul ended up buying expensive extra roaming data. Towels were a bit old and thin… we found new ones had been dried in tumble drier night before we left but no info on this ! No info on returning key especially as shop would be shut Sunday when leaving. Just lots of unwanted stress, but moaning to AirBNB support on our return got Paul’s data costs refunded. There was underground parking space but info not included in info pack. Just seemed like too much trouble for owner to do job properly.
So it depends on the owner whether the experience is good or not. But there are no bargains in my view on AirBNB anymore.
Gerald, I’ll not have time for a joint venture but I will be running a 145 Alive Net on Sunday from 1300-1500 BST (definitely BST ). I’ll be on Mount Battock GM/ES-032, so if you’re at a reasonable height, 2m should work well.
We’ve also used cottages.com for various holidays, mostly with good results (and one bad instance disappeared from their listings soon after). We tend to use which ever agency, or occasional private owner has a suitable cottage where we are looking to go. We’ve never ventured into trying AirBnB. Our worst cottage experience was a direct to owner.
For our recent trip to the south west we used Hoseasons for the first cottage. It was perfectly adequate but not wonderful: we needed to phone the owner when we discovered the towels we had hired weren’t provided - he did bring some promptly.
Second cottage near Bridgwater was with Sykes and was wonderful: one of the best we’ve stayed in and a real home from home. We’ve had generally good results with Sykes and one we stayed in a couple of years ago where we gave a less than perfect review appears to have had the tired and not entirely functional kitchen (dodgy gas oven) redone since.
That’s also my strategy. It’s great to explore new summits in far off places but there’s no sense in ignoring local ones when you have a spare few hours.