Alternatives to Airbnb

HOmeaway

2nd Homeaway. Or there is a FB group called Book direct with the Owner.

Its always worth looking at TIC's or their equivalent in other countries as they often list places to stay. I use tripadvisor quite a bit as its pretty extensive in terms of the listings but you can try travelsupermarket and some of the big travel websites. hotels.com and trivago all carry apartments as well.

Many sites like home away have charges that are as bad or even worse than Airbnb. You often get a better deal using sites that specialise in the area you want to visit so chez-nous or French connections for France. Or book directly with the owner.

If the overall price is fair, does it matter if it's split between cleaning and rental?

I usually use booking.com, but if you find somewhere by any site, it's always worth googling to see if the property has its own website so you can book direct with the owner, to save the middleman fees.

It isn't about the cleaning charges - the companies take a cut of the rental and often charge fees as well. Booking.com take 15% for example.

We’ve always found Homeaway or Owners Direct to be good

Most holiday rentals will have these costs built in one way or another. Agree look at comparing overall prices. I've often seen the same properties on Airbnb, Homeaway etc etc and they come out the same price give or take a couple of quid.

Owners Direct have now been fully taken over by HomeAway. HomeAway, Trip Advisor, Airbnb, Booking.com all charge between 15 - 20%, split between owner/guest - whoever they charge the guest is paying, the owner is not going to absorb the cost but will instead increase price to cover the charge. I would use the sites to find accommodation, check reviews, etc but would then google the name of the property/resort to see if the owner had a facebook page or website for the property and then book directly with the owner.

Totally agree with puckingfixies. All those sites, including HomeAway and Owners Direct (now absorbed by HomeAway) are forcing villa owners to adopt their commission model by dropping owners who don't use it to the very bottom of their rankings. So costs rise as owners try to account for the increased commission. Google the villa name and town/village and chances are there will be a website where you can contact the owner direct, saving around 20% or more sometimes. We've had a lot more direct bookings of our house in Spain this year, so I think guests are starting to look around more for the best deals.

One site that might be worth looking at is www.Spain-holiday.com, thay are gradually switching to a commission model but most of their owners should still be on the older system, so the prices shown should be the direct booking price.

We´ve been using rent-in-france.co.uk for years now, its such an easy website to use and you can contact the owners directly. No hassle at all or ridiculous "booking fees". We actually found them on Facebook, they popped up and soon we were seeing daily posts from them about some seriously fab properties all over France. Gave it a shot and deffo worth it! www.rent-in-france.co.uk/

The thing is though do you not have to pay upfront for your whole Airbnb booking but with Homeaway, Ownersdirect etc you can pay a third then the rest 6 /8 weeks before departure?
That always makes the others more attractive to me but more more owners are switching to AirBnB.