Does anyone use Owners Direct anymore?

[HelpIfICan]

I used to book all of my holidays with them knowing that I could talk direct with the owner's was great.
Now they take a booking fee of up to 15% that you pay for.. that's a massive £200 on top of your two week holiday.

Both Owners and customers are sick of it... they block your email and phone number so that you may only book through their website, only after you have paid do you get to see the owners details and visa versa.
They will not allow you to pay the owners direct as used to be the case with me... and so i will never use OD / HomeAway etc again.

Please check out the reviews on here. Trust Pilot.
uk.trustpilot.com/review/www.ownersdirect.co.uk

i know its such a shame. i used to use them a lot and struggling now to work out how to book reasonably priced holidays

I tend to use them in preference to AirBNB as I've heard such horror stories about last minute cancellations on that engine.

I can see why they'd block you from emailing outside the website, and equally I can see why they charge a fee, but it shouldn't be 15% as they already charge the owners.

Can you try googling the property to see if it's bookable outside of owners direct ?

I dont see why they should block their contact details, the old model for OD was simply hosting company, think of it like a newspaper, pay your money and place the add.

Try selling your car in Auto Trader and asking Auto Trader to manage the sale... its simply mad.

You now only get to see each others details once you have paid OD.
The owner no longer gets the opportunity to speak to the potential guest or visa versa so that you can both take security checks.

What about booking a weeks holiday and wanting to confirm dates before pressing the payment screen for your flight... this has happened to me in the past.. but luck would have it... i had the owners details from a previous holiday, but still relied on OD for his availability... when i called to confirm the dates, his wife had booked the period but had failed to update the calendar.

Call the owner always in the first instance..
Check Trust Pilot to see 1306 bad comments about this new model.

they block the owners details to stop people booking directly dont they and get out of paying the extra to OD. Someone on here a while back said its because a company had bought OD and paid over the odds for it and wanted to recoup some of the money. its a nuisance as i used to use them a lot

I stopped using them because they changed other stuff, too. Geographical searches are weird now and give you a vast radius as the crow flies - which given that we generally have mountain holidays - can find you a holiday home four valleys away from where you want to stay.
However, nearly everyone seems to have been taken over by the same people (is it Homeandaway? I can’t remember ) so it’s very difficult to find a decent holiday rental any longer.

If you Google the property name and the owners name and a location you should be able to find the owners website. If the owner doesn't have one then they aren't serious so move on.

It is a complete pain for owners too. Airbnb are worse, they charge both the owners and the guests and keep hold of the money until your Holiday has started.

Other options are the Brittany ferries site holidayfrancedirect , and cheznous.

I didn't realise this - I've used them before but 15% is loads. Only helpful if you want France, but gites-de France has thousands of properties and don't charge a fee. Otherwise, as PP said if the property has a name and location you can google them and often find the owner's website. Or in the UK, rental properties are sometimes listed on the local tourist office website.