Money back offer from Holiday Rentals

[ashtondav]

Hi

HR have just emailed me offering a money back offer of a year's advertising. I am obviously going to take them up on this, although because of their pricing premium they will have to generate nearly twice as many bookings as their competitors. If they do i will stay, if not i will get my money back.

I have read, here, the various threads on HR, have googled relevant key words and they come up on page 1. The only downside I can see is that I will be one of 25 properties in my small village - way more than the other sites i use.

I price lower than most others and always update my availability daily (!) so my positioning with others is quite good

Any tips from current HR users for maximising bookings?

Thanks

Tudor
www.frigiliana-apartment.com

[Linda Freese]

HR have just emailed me offering a money back offer of a year's advertising

Hi Tudor

How does that work then? What is the criteria for getting your money back???

Linda

[ashtondav]

HI Linda

I don't know. I registered with them a few weeks ago and then last week i get the invite to join:

We want you to be a part of our peak season, and so if you order your advert before December 15th 2005 we guarantee to refund your subscription fee if you're not delighted with our service.

Seemed a no-brainer to me and I will be delighted if they deliver! Why would anyone cancel if they deliver in proportion to their charges. They seem very honourable and professional so i think they can be trusted to deliver or pay up.

[Linda Freese]

I can recommend them wholeheartedly. This is my third year advertising with them and I am very happy with their service and the bookings that I receive from their website. I doubt you will get a refund - but only because you will be satisfied with your bookings!

Good luck!

Linda

[Hanorah]

Personally I have not been satisfied at all with HR and there are a few others in the same boat but for the majority they do appear to be very good. With nothing to lose I would go for it but I wished they had offered to refund my money as I have not had a single booking and only 2 enquires. I have not had any problems with any other form of advertising and am booked for 12 weeks next year which shows that the alternatives are working well.

For me though it was a total waste of money and I would love to get it back. It could fund a pretty good google adclick campaign instead. There was some debate when I first bought this up on lay my hat that my ad was at fault and I did change it and the photos completely but alas still no luck. HR also said that I was charging too much in comparison to others in Turkey but I am not going to rent a peak week for the ridiculous price of £250 when they get filled up a year before on my normal rates else where.

I do have a feeling with this site that it is more successful for certain Countries ie France where it is more established and this might account for the discrepancies between owners experiences. So I would say go for it I hope you are one of the satisfied customers.

One thing I would like to say though to HR is that I do wish you would extend the same courtesy to all your customers though.

[Normandy Cow]

Are you sure it is actually a whole year's free advertising, i.e. that you can stay with them until next December and then get your money back if you change your mind say on 13th December 2006?

In the past, their free offer was for the first three months, i.e. you paid for a whole year but could get a full refund if you cancelled within the first three months.

I signed with them last June on the back of this offer and was very pleased with the service, and I have had quite a lot of bookings from them even though it was not even the peak Jan/Feb booking time.

[Sarah]

Hi there

I have received the following offer, here is the wording (sorry it's a bit long but it should answer all the questions):

Reminder: Offer ends 15th December 2005

Your money back if you are not delighted! Guaranteed!


Full terms and conditions of money back guarantee

To qualify for a money back guarantee you must:
Be a new advertiser on holiday-rentals.com
Place an order for a 12 months advert before 15th December 2005
Quote your promotion code (MBG) in the notes field when you place your order
Display rental rates on your advertisement for a year in advance
Must have rentals available for at least 7 months a year and not be a timeshare
Confirm or update the availability of your property at least once every 2 weeks
Claim your refund at your first renewal - 12 months after your advert first goes live


Conditions of Money Back refunds

If you are not happy with our service in the first year of advertising, holiday-rentals.com will refund the full cost of one years' advertising.

The purpose of this guarantee is to allow first-time customers a means of trying out holiday-rentals.com with no risk.

You will not be eligible for any further money back guarantees for advertising any property on holiday-rentals.com


I'm currently pondering myself and given the good feedback from French users, I think I will probably go for it.

Sarah

[alexia s.]

This is where most pêople will lose the guarantee:
"Confirm or update the availability of your property at least once every 2 weeks ".

[paolo]

It's interesting that they say you have to 'confirm' your availability every two weeks - because if you don't you will end up at the bottom of the pile. Do they tell all their advertisers to 'confirm' their availability calendar every 2 weeks?

[Giddy Goat]

I agree, Linda, it all seems a bit woolly (Baaa!!!) to me - how do you measure 'happiness with results'? Surely you could say that you weren't happy because you only achieved 95% of your bookings through them, and they'd still have to cough up. Without stipulating criteria, they're leaving the offer open to abuse big-time!

Looks as if it's a win-win situation!

[alexia s.]

"It's interesting that they say you have to 'confirm' your availability every two weeks - because if you don't you will end up at the bottom of the pile."
This is not strictly true, Paolo. If you update the availability after, say, 2 weeks & one day, you will go to the top - but you will have failed to conform to the requirements of the h-r offer & thus will have lost the right to a refund. If you did this just once you would have lost the right.
Jane, good bleat - I mean, idea - but most people will forget the 2 weekly requirement. (Don't those ears get on your goat?)

[Giddy Goat]

...I'm still waiting for my ship to come in to finance the surgery. Are there any generous benefactors reading this?

[paolo]

"It's interesting that they say you have to 'confirm' your availability every two weeks - because if you don't you will end up at the bottom of the pile."
This is not strictly true, Paolo. If you update the availability after, say, 2 weeks & one day, you will go to the top - but you will have failed to conform to the requirements of the h-r offer & thus will have lost the right to a refund.

What I meant was, I don't think they generally tell existing advertisers that they have to fiddle the system by 'confirming' availability every 2 weeks. But they do want people on a trial to do this so they have more chance of getting clicked on and ultimately being 'happy', whatever that means.

[Giddy Goat]

....but they still won't allow a link to one's personal website, and that can only be for (their) selfishly motivated reasons. Sorry Paolo, going off on a slight tangent, but it's a particular gripe I have with them.

[alexia s.]

Paolo,
"'happy', whatever that means" - you sound just like Prince Charles!

Well I am married to a princess you know! I was just wondering how holiday-rentals will measure happiness.