How can I get a holiday apartment in Spain for a month at a cheaper price ? Any ideas

[Lardlizard]

As next year I’d like to go to Spain or similar but go for most of the summer
Probably 4-6 weeks

You won’t. Because it’s Spain in the summer holidays so they will let it regardless. It’s not like its going to be amply if you don’t go so they’re not glad of the long term let.

Camping would be cheaper.

Well I thought if I hired an apartment for say 4 weeks perhaps I could get a discount
Or maybe an air B and B or something similar

I’ve never actually used air B and B
Just heard of it

Couldn’t hack camping

Need air con and WiFi

Turning this round - my holiday let costs me the same amount of money per day to own whether you are in it for 30 days or 4 people go in for around 7 days each. Only possible less costs are the cleaning costs between clients but that isn't a big amount. Why would I give it you cheaper?

You could try Airbnb, they have villas listed and you can message the hosts directly and request a discount. They might agree to a small one

We did this in France with LoveHomeSwap so it cost us nothing! (Except a bit of work getting our house ready for our swap family).

But you won’t get a discount for 4 weeks because it isn’t in their interest to. If They could hire it for £400 a week to 4 people (and they will fill it in the summer holidays) why would they let you have it for 4 weeks for £1200 (for example)? They’re £400 down.

I agree with Pottering, our family have a holiday home in Spain and can get £750 p/w during Summer, why would I leave myself out of pocket by offering a discount?

Try Air BNB or a house swap type thing but I think you’ll be disappointed.

What do you consider a"cheaper price"? And what soet of area?
As an example,
I tried booking.com (you can't search more than 30 days) but i tried apartments/spain/27nights and a budget of around £1300, theres quite a few. This shows a few, but the more you zoom in/expand the map, and move around, the more listings it shows you.

An online travel agency such as booking.com or airbnb are not the best place to look for the best price, fees are anything from 15 - 20%. Airbnb charge the owner and the guest, booking charge the owner but that cost is passed to the guest via higher prices.

You could try houfy.com, currently free for owners and guests, or there are a number of facebook pages such as Book Your Holiday Direct where you can save on booking fees.

PPs are right, most owners will not need to discount in July/August but you will save upto 20% by booking directly with the owner rather than using a listing site.

Is your house nice? We house swap house and car so our only expense is flights.

Try Airbnb or homeaway or similar. Make sure you put in 28 nights or more. You can often get a discount for periods of 4 weeks or more but admittedly I haven't tried it in summer. You might have the best luck with something slightly inland rather than on the beach. You can see availability online so if they haven't got any bookings yet it might be worth a shot. Happy hunting!

try homestay

I think a lot of places would do it a. It cheaper as it’s easier to book it out for 4 weeks to one person than for four separate weeks

I think a lot of places would do it a. It cheaper as it’s easier to book it out for 4 weeks to one person than for four separate weeks

They do, in the off season - but not in peak season. They'd rather have more people for shorter periods, because they can do more upsells. There's no higher costs, they'd send cleaners etc even if you stayed for four weeks, as they contract the cleaners so don't save any money.

Can you go outside of the summer holidays? Otherwise you want to be looking at cooler places that don't get as much footfall or seeing if you know anyone through a friend of a friend who has a holiday home, they'd be more likely to accept the loss for a friend. It doesn't make economic sense otherwise.