Homelidays

OTA = Online Travel Agency, which means those sites that sell the booking and take the payment for you.
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Big Sis..
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Joined: Mon Feb 19, 2007 5:31 pm
Location: Torrevieja and Norfolk
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Post by Big Sis.. »

Hi Gascony :D

I think the Brits get what they can get away with.
If you can be flexible with flts all the better.

I had a lot of Enq who didnt really want Sat-Sat but you said that was what was available they took it.{cant be that picky off season though but you have to take your chances]

Some who book for 2 weeks arrived the sunday & left the fri that sort of thing.I do tell them they dont have to come Sat-Sat just pay for it.....
Someone wanted a long weekend but I ended up getting them to have Sat-Wed so it didnt mess 2 weeks up[charged them near enough the same as a week anyway] :wink:

Just had an Enq for both houses for April- Golfers- but wanted Fri- Mon I was tempted as April can be a bit slow but couldnt take the chance of messing 2 weeks up.

Hope your OK and not tooo Busy, take care :wink: :lol:
marrum31
Posts: 24
Joined: Sat Sep 23, 2006 5:09 pm
Location: Manche, France

Post by marrum31 »

i agree about trying not to mess up two weeks. there is nothing worse than taking an odd day booking and then 2 days laters getting a request for the full weeks lol like ros I always leave the high season for full weeks, if they leave earlier to miss the traffic thats their problem (we always drive back on the thursday because it cuts 3 hours off a weekend drive)

i think france is a little different because a lot of the brits drive there. I know my brother, an avid francophile, drives all the way down to the south of france but would never dream of driving to spain (about an hour further).

with a lot of the budget airlines flying all over spain now mid week flights are a lot cheaper and people who are flying would like to save the pennies to spend while on holiday and not getting there. I know i flew down this year and went mid week both ways because i could get the flights for 25ct instead of €200 each. it worked out cheaper for us to stay in a 4 star hotel for 3 nights than to fly at the weekend. I only had a couple of brits stay at the house this year and they all ended up staying in a hotel.
Becky
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Partridge
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Joined: Wed Sep 20, 2006 9:31 pm
Location: Costa de la Luz
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Post by Partridge »

I have just turned down a booking for 2 weeks next August as they wanted to come in on a Tues (3 days after the previous guests leave). As our bookings are nowhere near as good as some of you I may well live to regret that decision but it is so early that I thought if I don't give it a go, I will never know.

I have allowed mid week before but seeing as we don't do too well out of the main school hols I am taking a chance to see if I get the full 6 weeks, did manage it JUST this year :lol:
Don't waste energy on things you can't change.

Costa de la Luz apartment rental
www.ownersdirect.co.uk/spain/S5386.htm
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Giddy Goat
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Post by Giddy Goat »

It requires nerves of steel, doesn't it Partridge! I have turned down a similar inquiry for August '07 - it's the first of its kind in fact.

We were booked up very quickly for this year's school hols, but I have since increased our prices by £100 pw. We're lucky, in that we have 2 weeks of the school hols already spoken for, but the guests are returners, who get 5% discount, so didn't mind. This time last year I was already receiving inquiries and bookings for the '06 school hols, but so far there hasn't been a single new inquiry. So I caved in a week ago and reduced the rate by £50!

I think setting the prices at just the right level's the secret, which involves careful monitoring of your immediate competition. And canny advertising of course. I will PM you about this.
Nostalgia isn't what it used to be
marrum31
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Joined: Sat Sep 23, 2006 5:09 pm
Location: Manche, France

Post by marrum31 »

i have found that every year is different... some years they come flooding in thick and fast and others a slow trickle until may and then i end up having to beat them off with sticks! lol a lot has to do with how the weather was the year before... bad summer = early bookings

I think the higher up the Spanish coastline the harder it is to rent outside of the main season unless u spend a fortune in adverts. An english lady who bought a house in the same area as ours in Spain used to get a load of bookings all year round and i was quite jealous until she told me she spent 2 grand a year on adverts!

anything outside of the main season i ended up looking upon as a bonus
Becky
Nightowl
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Location: Cadiz, Spain & London
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Post by Nightowl »

This one is mainly to Partridge...because we are in the same side of spain.

I experimented last year with taking bookings starting midweek to allow people to take advantage of cheaper flights and I did quite well for bookings. But I did allow some people to do Friday or Sunday arrivals during the peak season which did mess up some other bookings and during the peak I did have a couple of spare days... probably this year I won't do that for the summer because in the end I could have probably booked it several times over.

But for either end of the peak weeks I think it may have tipped the balance for some of my bookings for people to get cheap flights so I'm going to be flexible for those dates again this year and see what happens.

I think if you are finding bookings a bit sparse then it might be worthwhile being flexible in the hope of nailing some of those enquiries. And in low season it's definitely worth it because sometimes Ryanair do flights for 1p on tuesdays or wednesdays and I would think that would attract bookings.
Nightowl
Forever going one step forwards and two
backwards......
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Partridge
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Location: Costa de la Luz
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Post by Partridge »

Hi Knightowl

Absolutely, I would bite people's hands off for shoulder season rentals and have even given 8 days for the price of 7 during this time :D I am only experimenting with the main school holidays but no doubt will lose my nerve by about February.

I think I have gone from very soft to fairly firm in just one season because I normally tell people that if I haven't got a booking by the time they go away, then they can stay until early evening if required BUT boy, did I come unstuck this year with my 2 extremely last minute bookings, won't bore you with the details but the most my flexibility will stretch to in the future would be 2pm at a push.
Don't waste energy on things you can't change.

Costa de la Luz apartment rental
www.ownersdirect.co.uk/spain/S5386.htm
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