Has Anyone Used.....

OTA = Online Travel Agency, which means those sites that sell the booking and take the payment for you.
Stu
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Has Anyone Used.....

Post by Stu »

....www.thevillafinder.com?

We've just been approached by the sales team at the above to enquire if we're interested in advertising our gites with them. They're offering quite a good start-up deal, with inclusion in the magazine 'Exclusive Holidays Magazine', and an ad with link to my own website for quite a small sum really. I'd not heard of them, so I wondered if any of you more seasoned folk out there had, and what your views (if any) were?

Cheers in advance.

Stu.
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paolo
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Post by paolo »

There were some views expressed on this outfit here:

viewtopic.php?t=719
Paolo
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Stu
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Post by Stu »

Paolo,

cheers for that! Please excuse my laziness in not having used the search facility for it! I'm just far too stressed at the 'mo...

Thanks again, I think we'll give it a miss too!
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tansy
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Post by tansy »

whay are you stressed? You're not having problems are you?
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enid
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Post by enid »

I guess they are stressed as moving day is fast approaching!?
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tansy
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Post by tansy »

ahhhhh...stress city then!

I'll never forget our move to France - booked on the fast ferry with 2 dogs & 3 cats - we would have get to the house with the keys before the furniture lorries....then P&O cancelled the ferry just after we had waved the lorries off! - we had to drive like the clappers through the night via the tunnel to catch the lorries (we had the keys), lorries that were sent to pack us up too small - the girl in the office had transposed the cubic meter figure - no other lorries available - the removal company wanted to comein 2 weeks time with what didn't fit in!!

Slightly stressful - but everything came good and everything arrived in France within 24 hours..we haven't looked back!

So good luck with the move...and welcome to your new home!
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Alan Knighting
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Post by Alan Knighting »

A couple more came in by e-mail yesterday, trying to sell their sites.

apartmentsdirect.ie

flapjackholidays.co.uk

Any experiences?

Alan
Stu
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Post by Stu »

Thanks for the good wishes Tansy et al. I must say that as stressed as we are, we just can't wait to get started. There've been a few hiccups along the way. The latest one being that our Agent called me yesterday in a flap because the bank in France require my signature asap before they'll release the funds to the notaire! We have the removal men in on Tues/Weds, and guess where I'm going to be? Nightmare, but no way round it if we want the signing to go ahead on Friday morning! So, poor old Syb & the kids get to load all our goods n chattels into the lorry, while I'll be on a plane coming back to Blighty!

I just hope it'll have been worth it in a year's time!

Alan, not heard of those sites either. It must be the new black, this setting up a lettings website lark....
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paolo
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Post by paolo »

Stu & Syb wrote:It must be the new black, this setting up a lettings website lark....
Ubi mel, ibi apes: where there is honey, there are bees...
Paolo
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Alan Knighting
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Post by Alan Knighting »

Ubi mel, ibi apes: where there is honey, there are bees...
In modern parlance is that "where there is money, there are would be's"?
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paolo
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Post by paolo »

Touché!
Paolo
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Alan Knighting
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Post by Alan Knighting »

This is a new one on me. Has anyone else come across it?

http://www.venere.com

Alan
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Garri
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Post by Garri »

Alan, they've been around a while. We used them last year when we booked a hotel in Bilbao - very good one, slap bang opposite the Guggie with Jeff Koons' flower dog staring us in the face! A Silken hotel.

I found the site/service very efficient and it looks like they've redesigned their site - for the better (imho).
janskov
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Post by janskov »

I have used Venere.com for 2 years without a single booking - maybe due to my location and maybe because they seem to be mainly optimised for hotels.
They have an impressive administrative support – that is complicated and was useless to me.
Once your data and pictures are in you can not change anything yourself.
I have given up on them.
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Alan Knighting
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Post by Alan Knighting »

A little while ago I posted a question about an Irish site which sends me a sales/spam e-mail from time to time. I don't remember any replies.

Going back to my original posting I find the web address of the site has been deleted. Does anyone have any experience with Apartments Direct?

On another thread someone this morning posted a question about booking software. Co-incidentally, Apartments Direct include booking software in their offer so these things must exist.

Alan
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