If you are looking to rent an apartment or a flat for the vacation season, you have a variety of options at your disposal. Nowadays people are struggling to find a good, reliable vacation rental website simply due to the sheer number of them. 

A vast number of people don’t know that some of the biggest vacation rental websites belong to but a handful of bigger companies, which basically means that you might end up spending a lot of time while browsing through the same packages with different name plates. So, we’ve scrounged the market for the biggest names, and here is the list of the best vacation rental website companies available:

Airbnb

Though its name might not be exactly catchy per se, Airbnb is one of the most famous vacation rental website companies, especially in the sphere of short-term rental. This company offers a wide variety of listings featuring all the most relevant and popular locations. Furthermore, their website was specifically designed to be as user-friendly as possible.

One of the main benefits of using Airbnb is precisely that – their website packs a convenient property map feature which allows you to browse through listed locations with one simple click.

Booking.com

The Booking.com website is probably the most versatile booking site on the current market. This company offers a plethora of different accommodations. Just like the Airbnb website, Booking.com has a plain interface which will save you dozens of hours of needless scrolling. 

What’s more, you will be able to make use of the built-in filters to quickly narrow down the object of your search. The listings on this website as exact and thorough, so you will be able to check out user reviews, discover more info about the host, get acquainted with the house rules beforehand, and more.

However, Booking.com isn’t perfect. Some users have reported that there have been significant differences between quoted and actual prices in terms of extra fees. On the plus side, you can get all the info you need if you contact the host directly.

Expedia

Expedia is almost equal to Booking.com on the field of performance as they too offer a huge variety of different accommodations. However, this website has a completely separate vacation-rental search engine, the filtering is completely option. 

The Expedia website contains thousands of listings, but there are a couple of things that make it a bit less user-friendly than most. Namely, they offer you to use the Expedia map to check out the locations of their rental deals, but it’s tightly linked to the built-in filter options, which means that you will have to pre-set all the data before you can switch back to Expedia map.

Expedia’s strongest point is the filtering feature. You will be able to use ‘business’ and ‘family’ oriented filters to find top spots with best service in accord to your needs more easily.

HomeAway

The HomeAway starts off with a very simple prompt which features a built-in calendar where you can specify the arrival and departure dates, as well as with a little check-box where you can fill out the number of people onboard (Adults and children). There’s even an option to filter ‘pet friendly’ deals. 

This company boasts a very clean design, offers a huge number of filtering options, and, most importantly, instant booking. This website is one of the leading vacation rental websites because they’ve paid so much attention to detail, breaking down every deal down to the very last feature. 

TripAdvisor

The TripAdvisor is basically a company comprised of several smaller rental businesses which together offer a versatile listings catalogue. Apart from the multitude of filters you can use to quickly find a good rental spot, there are also various recommendations if you don’t know where to start but are eager to begin.

The TripAdvisor’s strongest point is that their quoted prices are identical to actual prices. What you see is what you get appears to be their motto, as each price you’ll see on their listings includes all the necessary taxes or fees.

Lodgify – a boon to your rental website

If you are struggling to get your name among the best vacation rental websites, we strongly recommend that you give Lodgify a go. Basically, this is a platform which was created to help people design their own vacation rental website easy and cheap.

This platform offers a variety of website building features and templates, and best of all, it’s remarkably easy to use. Even if you are completely new to the business, there are plenty of useful resources you can find there to get you started. 

One of the best things about Lodgify is that there are no pre-determined fees or commissions. The only price you’ll have to pay is basically the subscription fee, which is fairly attractive.

Paul watson