HomeAway is a vacation rental site that was created in 2005 by Carl Shepherd and Brian Sharples but was acquired by Expedia Group in 2015. HomeAway’s headquarters is located in Austin, Texas, USA. HomeAway’s primary service is to connect travelers to the people and places they are visiting. This platform pairs travelers who are looking for places to stay with homeowners who are willing to rent out their homes.
HomeAway has grown into a global platform with over 2 million vacation rentals that cut across 190 countries listed on its website. Home away has sister websites that are also operated by Expedia Group.
HomeAway is one of the most popular and the giant among the platforms that render vacation rental services. Most of the properties listed in HomeAway’s website are in North America and Europe. HomeAway has a user-friendly website with the site’s search box conspicuously positioned in the homepage.
The site contains the full photos of available properties for rent and other details of the property. The details that usually appear include: the type of accommodation, user rating, number of bathrooms and bedrooms contained in the house, number of guests the house can contain, square footage, and nightly rating.
Users can easily get the type of house they desire to rent with the help of the filter option that is contained in the website. One can filter his result by location,number of bedrooms, number of bathrooms, instant booking, property type, and feature/amenities. This mean that a traveler who may wish to rent a house that’s located beside an ocean or a lake, or a house that has Wi-Fi service, or a house that has a pool, can easily find his choice apartment.
Moreover, a family that’s going on vacation can use the filter option to get a property that has their desired number of rooms and bath rooms.HomeAway provides you with the property owner’s contact which will enable you to communicate directly with them if need be.
HomeAway is not only designed for those looking for properties to rent, property owners also benefit from this platform. A property owner can list his property on HomeAway and that can place his property before millions. Using HomeAway website is not free for property owners, they may need to pay a yearly subscription fee or pay each time their properties are booked.
Learn more about HomeAway, visit them on https://www.homeaway.com
HomeAway is not in the vacation rental business alone. There are several other platforms that render similar services which you can use as a suitable alternative to HomeAway. Read on!
Alternative sites to HomeAway
1. HomeToGo
HomeToGo does not actually render the same service with HomeAway, the site is rather a search engine. With HomeToGo one can have access to over one thousand good vacation rental sites in more than 200 countries in just a click. There are a countless number of properties listed for rent on this site. HomeAway’s listings feature the type of lodging, photos of the properties, their user ratings, and the property’s original site.
A click on the property will take you to the original site where is wasoriginally posted; the site could be HomeAway, Airbnb, Flipkey, etc., prices and lots more are also contained. Like HomeAway, users of HomeToGo can use the filter option to streamline their preferences. A user may only need to fill in his desired location and a list of available properties for rent in that location will be made available for him.
You can also use filters such price, amenities, location, number of bedrooms and bath rooms to enhance your search. HomeToGo has many features in their user-friendly website that can help you to get nothing but what you want.
Learn more about HomeToGo, visit their website on https://www.hometogo.com
2. Airbnb
Airbnb is among the best vacation rental platforms, and one of the strongest competitors of HomeAway. The headquarters of this company is located at 888 Brannan Street, San Francisco, California, United States. The site was launched in 2008 and has since then provided employment for more than 6,300 persons.
The site has immensely helped a countless number of travelers in reducing lodging and hospitality related challenges. It has equally given property owners the platform to rent out their properties with ease and make money from their properties. Airbnb has numerous properties around the globe listed in their website from over 220 countries and regions. Airbnb is currently accessible in 62 languages.
Like HomeAway, Airbnb is a website for booking apartments without having to meet the owner of the propertyphysically. Travelers who may wish to lodge in an apartment that is similar to their homes always seek to rent homes rather than hotels. Such apartments can simply be referred to as ‘home away from home’; you can cook your meals, launder your clothes, and move about without restrictions.
Like HomeAway, Airbnb website contains useful details of every apartment in their list; details suchas location, type of accommodation, amenities, house rules, reviews from past users, bed arrangement, cancellation policies, property owner’s contact, and a breakdown of price. With the availability of the property owner’s contact, you can choose to speak to your host to get more details of the apartment before booking.
There are more than enough apartments on Airbnb’s website that can soothe your taste.
Learn more about Airbnb, visit them on https://www.airbnb.com
3. Fipkey
Flipkey is a web-based vacation rental platform which was created in 2006. It is one of the well-known vacation rental places, and it boasts of having over 830,000 properties in more than 190 countries. Flipkey can be considered as one of the perfect alternatives to HomeAway. Flipkey does not just list a property in their site, they verify the apartments before listing. That notwithstanding, the reviews from past users of the apartments can be of a great help in your decision making process.
There are varieties of properties to select from on Flipkey, the choice is all yours. Whether you need an expansive beach house, a convenient ski chalet, a far-flung private island, or a city-centre studio, you can easily get one through Flipkey. Like in HomeAway, you can filter your options on Flipkey.
Similarly, Flipkeyalso allows homeowners to list their property on the platform. One can list a private room, a whole house, villas, or an apartment. Once your property is verified, Flipkey allows it to appear on their website. This places your property before millions of Flipkey users, that is, your property can appear when people search on the site. Registration on Flipkey is free, but you will pay a fee once your property is booked.
Flipkey is available for everyone irrespective of their religion, tribe, skin colour, age, or location. Flipkey is owned and managed by TripAdvisor.
Learn more about Flipkey, visit them on https://www.flipkey.com
4. Vrbo
Vrbo which simply stands for Vacation Rentals By Owner was created by David Clouse in 1995, but it was acquired by HomeAway in 2006. HomeAway is a subsidiary of the Expedia Group which has their headquarters at Austin, Texas, United States. Vbro is an exquisite vacation rental platform which can be used as a good alternative to its sister site, HomeAway.
Although properties from every part of the world are listed on Vrbo, majority of the properties there are located in Europe and North America. There are more than one million unique properties you can select from on Vrbo. Properties ranging from beach houses, condos, cabins, and other categories of spaces, are listed on Vbro.
Property listing on Vbro is free, but like in HomeAway, there are two payment options for property owners whose properties are listed on Vrbo site. A property owner can choose to pay a yearly subscription fee, or pay per booking. Vbro records millions of site visit per month, and numerous bookings are equally done on the site every day.
Learn more about Vrbo, visit them on https://www.vrbo.com
5. InterHome
InterHome is one of the popular sites that offer vacation rental services globally.Interhome which was founded in 1965 has its headquarters in Glattbrugg, Zurich, Switzerland. With over 340 workers, Interhome provides more than fifty thousand vacation rentals in over 31 countries. The top countries on Interhome website include Netherlands, France, Spain, Switzerland, Croatia, Australia, etc. whereas the top regions include Costa Blanca, Bernese Oberland, North Sea, Tyrol, Valais, Languedoc-Roussilon, etc.
Interhomeprovides assistance to lodgers on-site and also providesother important services for them. Besides, they provide travel ideas for their site visitors, and they are available to give answers to their questions 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Interhome serves their users in many languages, and they have varieties of properties for rent on their website just like HomeAway.
You can list your property or rent a property on Interhome, it all depends on what you want.
Learn more about Interhome, visit them on https://www.interhoome.com
Conclusion
HomeAway is a wonderful vacation rental service site, but they have strong competitors who offer similar services and which can be used as alternatives to HomeAway. With the existence of these sites renting suitable properties for good vacation experience have been greatly simplified for travelers.
