I am planning on useing Homelidays for an apartment rental in Nice for 6 days. However, I am slightly hesitant because it is done through bank transfers and not PayPal or credit. Please let me know if anyone used Homelidays and how their experiance was. Or is anyone ahs booked an apartement in another coutnry with bank transfers.
Just worried about gettng tricked..
thank you

You won't be renting through Homelidays. It is just a listing site like vrbo. You will be dealing w/ an individual owner so whether they take credit cards, or bank transfers, or Paypal, or cash depends on that owner.

One thing -- are there any reviews on Homelidays? Because the site only contacts folks to post reviews if they have actually booked a place (so it would be hard for there to fake reviews).

I've used Homelidays several times and have always had good experiences. However, I always chose properties which had multiple positive reviews. Also, I never did bank transfers and ended up mailing checks for the deposit instead.

Ironically, I didn't use Homelidays for renting a place in Nice. I didn't see anything that I liked on Homelidays so used a different site.

Most holiday rentals done direct with owners involve using bank transfers or Paypal.

Have used Home Away Holidays and Owners Direct. Both were linked directly to the owners and both required deposits to be transferred in advance. One returned my deposit in person and the other transferred it back through my bank and I was charged her bank fee. If you are dealing with an individual, see if they will take the deposit via Western Union to avoid the bank fees on both ends of the transaction.

I believe Nice Pebbles is run by an agency.

"<i>see if they will take the deposit via Western Union . . .</i>"

Western Union is the least secure (other than sending cash of course). I'd <u>never</u> rent a place that required Western Union.

Homelidays is a publisher of adverts for private holiday homes available to rent direct from the owner. We have a dedicated team worldwide who work to prevent fraudulent listings appearing on our site. In addition, if we had received serious complaints about a property, this would result in the advert being removed from our site.

However, to give you extra peace of mind when booking a rental property, we recommend you take these steps:

1) Read testimonials from past renters

Read testimonials from past renters who have stayed at the properties advertised on our site. For this, simply click on the "Testimonials" tab on the advert.

2) Check how long the advertiser has been with us

Find out how long the owner has been advertising with us by scrolling down to the "Prices and availabilities" section of the advert. The longer an owner has been with us, the less likely they are to have been troublesome.

3) Register for the Carefree Package with Europ Assistance

Homelidays has an exclusive partnership with Europ Assistance who provide a comprehensive insurance policy for renters booking a property advertised on our site. For more information, visit:

http://www.homelidays.co.uk/EN-Holid...ance_price.asp

4) Get a rental contract before sending payment

Before sending any payment to the owner, request and complete a rental contract. The contract should specify the dates you are booking, the deposit and total rental fee plus any additional charges, cancellation and refund policies.

5) Use our recommended payment methods

When making payment for a holiday rental property, some forms of payment are more secure than others. Credit card payments offer the safest method followed by Paypal. Bank transfer or personal cheque are also common payment methods accepted by private owners. We strongly recommend that you never make payment by cash transfer services such as Western Union as these are untraceable.

We hope this gives you peace of mind about booking a property advertised on our site.

The Homelidays Team

I'm looking at an apartment in Bellagio through homelidays. I emailed the owner asking for rates for the dates I want to stay and indicating our budget per week. The owner emailed back saying he could do it at 650 Euros per week because I had booked early (special price for me speil). The apartment number is 406999.The owner has first put the add with this service in August 2011 so there are no testimonials. It looks a very nice apartment - renovated 2010 according to add. I was just at the stage of making enquiries so I didn't get back to the owner. He has just emailed me again saying he is sure I will like the apartment and have I decided what I want to do. I've actually found a few places on Lake Como where owners are prepared to negotiate when I say that the price they indicate is beyond our budget - I've done this when I've emailed to request the price for our dates and it comes back above our budget but close to our maximum. I'm not sure whether this is a good or bad thing.

Is it safe to pay a deposit by international bank transfer? We're wary of using PayPal as our son had his entire bank account cleared out a month or so ago and it was found to be a breach of PayPal which he had used to pay for things on e-bay. We are thinking bank transfer might be safer if credit cards are not an option. What do others think?

Bank transfers are trustworthy. You will pay a fee when you send owner the deposit. Then owner may deduct his bank's fee from your security deposit when he has to transfer that back to you. I think the fees these days are about 35-40 euros for each transfer.

We used Nice Pebbles and stayed in Cappuccino in May and couldn't fault the apartment or Nice Pebbles. Very very easy to book and contact was great with nothing too much trouble. Will use again if we ever get back to Nice.

We also used Nice Pebbles a few years ago, for a week over Christmas and it all worked really well. They were professional to deal with and we loved the apartment. I found them on the vacation rental part of www.slowtrav.com
Nice Pebbles don't own the apartments, they deal between the owner and renter.

I've never used Homelidays but if you are dealing direct with the owner, do as much research as possible, look for reviews, exact address so you can check where the apartment is, even Google the apartment address to see if it turns up anything.

Kay

Another vote for Nice Pepples,
I have used them twice and have found them to be very professional and easy to deal with.