A lot of people that end up booking their vacations do so through a shopping comparison web portal. While it may sound like a good idea, it’s not nearly as good as it sounds. It does have its fair share of cons which make it preferable to do it directly. There are plenty of benefits of booking direct.
1. Save Money
A big reason why you will want to consider booking direct is to save money. This can be a great way to save money because you won’t be obligated to pay the added service fee the aggregators charge. Because they are running a business, they need to charge you fees for booking through them. When you book direct, you don’t pay this extra charge because the company isn’t a middleman. Instead, you get the preferred price and you can get by without paying the extra fees. This ends up saving you money in the long run.
2. It’s Easy To Change Your Reservation
Whenever you book direct for your vacation rental, you don’t need to worry about not being able to change anything. When you book through a third-party website, you are generally going to be limited to the changes you can make. You will have to go through a lot of hoops just to get something changed. This is primarily because they don’t have a directly connected system. The third-party provider has certain information and limitations to what they can do. Likewise, the place you are renting has different information. Thus, getting them to communicate to make any sort of changes can be an arduous task.
3. Get Better Service
Because you will be a direct customer when you are booking your vacation rental direct, you are going to end up getting a lot better service. The company that is providing you with the vacation rental will be much more incentivized to provide you exceptional service because they depend on it. When you are booking through a middleman, they won’t be incentivized to provide you with the same type of service. Their job is to handle the booking and everything involved with that. They generally don’t go any further than that when it comes to answering questions you may have or anything else. The chances of you getting poor service go up exponentially if you book through a different company. By booking direct, you can get information straight from the source. You’ll be able to ask them questions about the area and even about the specific place you are renting.
4. Have More Options
Whenever you go through a third party to book your rental, you are going to be limited based on the inventory they are allotted. Typically, they will be given only a fraction of the available vacation rentals. These companies tend to list the least popular rentals on these third-party sites. There’s little incentive for them to release rentals that are in high demand on these sites when they can get direct bookings. They make more from direct bookings. Therefore, you can bank on them having a lot more options and even better options when you book direct.
As you can tell, there are a lot of reasons to book direct. Unless you are getting an absolute steal of a deal, it makes more sense to go direct. You will not only avoid paying outrageous and unnecessary fees, but you will also get better service and have a lot more choices when it comes to your next vacation rental.
