The Apps That Will Get You a Great Place to Stay in Europe
Enjoying a vacation destination is easier if you love the accommodations that you book. With the availability of so many online travel companies and applications, it can be difficult to narrow down the wide array of listings or to be sure that you find a property that suits your needs and preferences.
Also, what happens when your booking isn’t what you expected or your host doesn’t fulfill his/her end of the bargain. Not all companies screen their listings carefully, and you may even find that some hosts are not exactly honest in representing their listing. Moreover, the policies of some of the larger booking companies could leave you high and dry without much recourse. We have some strategies that can increase your odds of finding a lovely vacation booking that meets your needs and helps you avoid unhappy experiences with bad bookings. .
First, book your vacation rental with a credit card, whether it’s an apartment or a hotel. If worse comes to worse and the booking is a disaster, the host refuses a refund, the booking company stonewalls you, then you can fall back on asking your credit card company to assist you in getting your money back. We’ve only had to do this one time. American Express was very effective in getting the travel company to issue a full refund – immediately. Of course, we only resorted to enlisting our credit card company after exhausting all other options through ongoing communication with the booking company for 10 days.
Second, before you start your online search, make a list of property amenities that are important to you. Some of your options will be “musts” while others will be “would be nice” features. Here are some examples of things that we typically look for in our booking searches:
Next, use an online booking service that provides guest reviews and allows you to search using filters (e.g. price range, type of property, amenities). We have used a number of different online travel booking companies. Our top three are Booking.com, VRBO, and AirBnB.
Booking.com is our favorite booking site, so we’ll start with them. We use booking.com because the reviews are usually detailed and trustworthy. Moreover, you can click on the overall review rating to reach a summary page that allows you to sort the reviews in a few ways. We always sort by “lowest reviews first” to read the worst things that guests say about the property. If we see things that we can’t live with, then we move on to another listing.
We’ve interacted with booking.com customer service a few times and have always been very satisfied with our conversations and the outcomes. In one of those calls, we learned an important feature of the booking service.
When you are looking at the pictures in the overview of the property, the host may include pictures for multiple units. For example, if a host is renting two different apartments, he/she may mix in pictures from both units. In addition, the units may be named the same thing (e.g. standard apartment, deluxe suite) on the selection page. You might not realize that you aren’t getting a unit that looks like the pictures in the overview. To avoid this problem, click on the picture within the unit that you are selecting to see the exact pictures for that unit. We were sorely disappointed in a unit we rented in Strasbourg, France when our booking did not match what we thought we were getting. Live and learn. Now we know that you have to look at the pictures with each available selection on the selection page.
VRBO: You’ll have access to many properties through VRBO, but we probably won’t use them again because of one of their policies. Apparently, the host has 24 hours from the time of scheduled check-in to make the property available to you. We were stranded in Zagreb, Croatia when a pre-paid booking failed to return our messages as the check-in day was drawing near. We asked repeatedly for check-in instructions over the two days prior to our scheduled arrival. Finally, we called VRBO. They were also unable to contact the host. On the day of our check-in, we checked into a hotel, even though we had prepaid our VRBO booking. We had a number of phone calls with VRBO. That’s when they told us that the host had 24 hours from the check-in time to make the apartment available to us. The host never contacted us and VRBO eventually refunded our money. However, the entire situation was very stressful. We ended up spending more money on hotel rooms and didn’t have the amenities that we would have enjoyed in an apartment.
AirBnB: Again, you’ll have lots of options if you’re looking for an apartment. Also, the app has good filters to help you narrow down options. You’ll want to read the reviews and the property descriptions very carefully. Look for red flags that might be inconsistent with the good ratings. We recommend that you seek properties with 50 or more reviews when you use AirBnB. Read every one and, if you see something that is awry, consider ditching the listing. Red flags are things like dirty/dusty conditions, bed bugs, noisy area or neighbors, difficult host, uncomfortable furnishings or bed, plumbing problems, failure to provide promised amenities.
Even when you read all the reviews with AirBnB, you might not uncover problems with a listing. AirBnB has a rating process that involves the host rating the guest. If a guest knows that a host is going to rate them, he/she may be less likely to describe problems or give low ratings for fear of reprisal.
AirBnB instituted a new AIrCover policy that makes it seem like the guest will be protected if a bad rental situation is encountered. We found that their policies may favor the host more so than the guest. We found ourselves in an undesirable rental with little assistance from AirBnB.
The listing was in Freiburg, Germany so we tried to view it through the lens of being in a different country with a different culture as well as language challenges. However, we really couldn’t account for what happened. The apartment we rented received wonderful reviews, but we experienced a number of problems: 1) it did not look like the tidy, clean pictures on AirBnB; 2) the entire place was cluttered, messy and full of the owner’s belongings; 3) there was no wardrobe or drawer space to unpack our clothes for our two-week stay; 4) wet clothes were drying on a rack in the living room; 5) shoes were placed on the stairs and coats hung on the wall cluttering the narrow entryway; 6) several dirty bathrobes were hanging on the back of the bathroom door; 7) and some amenities were missing or appeared unusable.
When we were oriented to the apartment by the host, the closets and drawers were jammed full with their clothes. The refrigerator was full of their food with no room for anything we might wish to store during our two-week stay. The kitchen counters and cupboards were full of their food and supplies. The laundry closet was dirty and the washing machine was difficult to access because of the mess. The host said she could recommend a laundry service to us. The quaint balcony was not so quaint. It was obviously a storage area for ladders and other equipment. The pictures on AirBnB showed a lovely dinette set and a grill, instead a ladder was leaning against the balcony wall and numerous untidy plants were arrayed throughout the space.
We decided almost immediately that we couldn’t stay in that messy, dirty situation. On the check-in day, we contacted AirBnB before leaving the apartment, took pictures of the mess and contacted the host to cancel the booking and express our dissatisfaction with the conditions of the apartment. The host did not offer to correct the situation and would not refund our money. The AirBnB “ambassadors” (we communicated with several) said that the conditions were not a “critical violation” of their policies. Eventually, I asked to speak with an AirBnB supervisor, and we were granted a full refund plus a gift of a credit towards a future-stay for the unfortunate booking conditions and the subsequent poor service provided by the AirBnB ambassadors.
Bottom line, if you experience a bad situation, take pictures and videos of everything that is awry, contact the host and express your dissatisfaction, cancel the booking as soon as possible through the app, contact the booking service through their chat function and through a phone call. Be persistent. Describe the egregious incidents or conditions clearly and concisely. Unfortunately, it’s possible to encounter dishonest people and poor lodging conditions anywhere you travel. Don’t be discouraged though. We seldom have problems with our accommodations, and it’s largely due to spending the necessary time researching our options.
Lastly, try to always book a property that allows free cancellation within a reasonable time frame. We like to find cancellation policies that allow us to cancel within two weeks of the check-in day with a full refund. Read the policies carefully though, because some will say that you can cancel, but you won’t get a refund. Also, consider how far in advance you have to pay for the booking. Sometimes we pay on the day of booking, which may be months in advance and sometimes we pay within one or two weeks of the check-in day. Be careful also about how payment is collected. We always look for properties that take Visa or American Express. If we encounter properties that require bank transfer, we decide against the booking. You won’t be protected in any way if you transfer money to them. They’ll have your cash and you won’t have any recourse.
We hope this helps you make good decisions about your travel accommodations. Seeing the world is a fabulous way to enrich your life and staying in great accommodations will help you enjoy your experiences even more.. Happy travels!
