Top 24 Vacation Rentals Booking Websites

With the hotel rates rapidly rising, vacation rentals seems like a great alternative for vacation accommodation considering the extra space and amenities that one can get for a price much less that what he would spend on a hotel. However, finding the best apartment, that too in a city or country unfamiliar to you can be quite a herculean task.

With the internet at your disposal, it has now become possible for anyone having a spare room to be able to post listings for travelers making it easier to locate vacation rentals. There are over a hundred websites offering this service, each with a variety of options at different rates. Following is an overview of the best websites for vacation property rentals ranked according to their traffic.

You can also check our list of top hotel booking sites if you’re looking to book a hotel room.

TripAdvisor.com

This is a renowned acomodation review website that has a section with a number of rental websites offering over 200,000 vacation rental options all across the globe. Your search can be narrowed down based on your preferences and the biggest benefit is that you do not have to pay any advance fees for your booking. Travelers who have booked using the website can also post photos of the rentals which provides more transparency about the rental’s quality.

Airbnb.com

For travelers planning with a fixed budget in mind, Airbnb.com (Earlier known as AirBreadandBreakfast.com) is the big website to look for vacation rentals. It offers over 100,000 rental options in 190 countries focusing on cities like Paris, London, San Francisco and New York. The accommodation range offered by this website stretches from yachts and luxury homes to spare and shared rooms. There are several filters available on the site to help you narrow down your search.

Airbnb.com also allows for Facebook account linking therefore making it possible for you to read any reviews and see pictures posted by any friends who have used this service before.

VRBO.com

VRBO.com, better known by the name Vacation Rentals by Owner, has a listing of over 175,000 rentals. You can use filters to narrow down location, category of rentals and availability. The major drawback of this site is that it doesn’t allow for search by prices. Also, the website has clunky navigation where a long list of vacation rentals is provided and you are expected to click on each one of them to sift through their details. For travelers looking for specific rentals in the US, VRBO.com is worth checking-out despite the poor user guidance provided.

HomeAway.com

If you find traditional vacation homes appealing, HomeAway.com will provide you with great options from its database of over 290,000 listings across 145 countries. A large chunk of the listings are concentrated in the US and Europe. Filters extend to a number of features and go to depths like pools or pet allowance.

Flipkey.com

Flipkey.com has 50,000 plus vacation rental listings with ratings and photographs from previous users with featured destinations concentrated in Mexico, Europe and the US. The website is good for travelers planning vacations on a tight budget.

Holiday Lettings

Holidaylettings is a UK based vacation rental website connecting homeowners and travellers. On their website, they currently have more than 68000 homes, condos, villas and apartments listed for rent. The site is online since 1999 but acquired in 2010 by Tripadvisor.

HouseTrip.com

HouseTrip.com is founded in 2009 and quickly became popular house rental destination of thousands of users. The company’s headquarter is in Switzerland. It offers holiday rentals from destinations all across the globe. Every booking comes with free protection plan and runs on secure system. Owners can list their vacation rental property but require paying 10-20% if property is booked.

Owner’s Direct

OwnersDirect is online since 1997 and now part of Homeaway. The site has more than 40000 vacation properties including villas, apartments, b&bs, mobile homes and boats from all across the globe. The site also has a section to find Golf properties for golf players!

Rentals.com Vacations

Rentals.com is basically a place for residential rentals. However they recently added a section for vacation rental properties. Although it is mostly serving USA and only fewer parts of other countries with limited no. of vacation rental properties.

VacationRentals.com

This website is a subsidiary of HomeAway.com but it has its own listing. It’s clean and simple layout and search functions make it a user-friendly website serving a wide variety of audiences.

Stayz Australia

An Aussie website Stayz.com.au is part of Fairfax Digital – which is Australia’s leading online news network. The other popular website’s from Fairfax includes smh.com.au (Australia’s leading news resource, drive.com.au, domain.com.au and many others. Stayz.com.au currently lists more than 35500+ holiday rentals from 1200+ Australian destinations. It however don’t offer listings from any other country but user from other countries can book through this site.

BedandBreakfast.com

The site was founded in 2006 and later acquired by HomeAway, inc. It currently lists more than 475000 vacation rental properties including b&b, private rooms, farmhouse, guest houses, lodges and ranch houses. Hosts can become paid member ($21.99/month) to list their property.

Holiday Home Rentals

UK’s Independent vacation rental website offering holiday villas, holiday apartments, holiday flats and holiday cottages. The site also offers vacation rental properties from other countries and connecting Holidaymakers and Holiday home owners online. Their English website started in 2006.

9Flats.com

9Flats is a p2p vacation rental community. Currently site lists more than 58000 properties and quickly growing. The site acquired another Canada based holiday rental website iStopOver to enter in North American market. All accommodations booked through 9Flats are insured by Zurich (an insurance company.)

Vacation Home Rental

The site claim to list more than 13000 vacation rental properties from more than 85 countries on their website. The site offers happy home guarantee and lowest price guarantee. Users can also find some last minute deals on this site. Vacation home owners can easily list their vacation property by opening an account.

HomeliDays

Homelidays.com is also offered in many other countries and in local languages. The site claim to list more than 87000 vacation homes on their website. The site was independently created in 2000 but acquired by Homeaway group in 2009.

Wimdu.com

Wimdu claims to list more than 50000 properties on its website. The website started in 2011 with headquarter in Germany. The site is offered in 15 different languages with many regional mirror websites. Currently it has more than 100000 users. Listing property with Wimdu is free but hosts require to pay 3% fee if property is booked.

Roomorama.com

Having over 40,000 vacation rental listings spread over 3,700 destinations concentrated in Asia and Europe, Roomorama.com offers you with free and easy search options. You can look up the site if you are looking for an apartment or private home abroad. A booking fee of 8-12% is charged based on the length of your vacation.

AlwaysOnVacation

Users can find vacation rental properties or owners hosted rentals. Alwaysonvacation.com is also available in many regional mirror sites. Renter can sign up an account to book any property while owner can create account to list their properly on website. They also have a traveller’s protection program to protect travellers where a minimum of $1000 protection is offered for free.

LuxuryRetreats

The site only lists luxury vacation properties for travellers with luxury in mind. They currently have 1500 villas and vacation properties from more than 40 destinations. The site is based in Montreal, Canada and online since 1999.

VillaRenters

This UK based website founded in 2003 and offers more than 13000 vacation homes from 85 countries. They offer travellers 100% moneyback guarantee. The site is a part of UK’s leading media group Daily Mail and General Trust plc. They also offer late vacation rental deals.

FriendlyRentals

Barcelona based website is online since 2003 and currently lists 3000+ vacation properties. The site claim to have half million customers and sold more than 2 million nights.

CyberRentals.com

The best aspect of CyberRentals.com is that it allows you to search according to dates right from its main page and this ensures that you won’t be disappointed due to unavailability when you make your choice. Also, the website separately lists all the special deals making it handy. You can also make your own favorite list with properties so that you can come back to the ones you picked later.

VacationRentalDirect.com

This website offers an updated look with features that are user-friendly making it a good platform for efficient bargain on your vacation rental. VacationRentalDirect.com is free for all travelers. One unique aspect of this site is that it includes a section meant for fraud reports. You can also attach links to your Facebook account to see reviews posted by friends.

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