If you don’t know what Airbnb is then I’m not sure which rock you’ve been living under for the last 10 or so years. Airbnb changed how people stay in places by offering up a vast array of homes in so many places around the world. Airbnb is good but there are other companies out there that offer the same service. Below we list these and tell you what they offer and why they might be worth checking out.
1. Vrbo
Vrbo use to be known as Home and Away before being branded as Vrbo (Vacation rentals by owners) globally in 2019 and is owned by Expedia. With this platform, they only rent out holiday homes so you will not have anyone hosting you, so rest assured you and your fellow travellers will be the only people staying at the property. There is a huge selection on Vrbo and is second in size to Airbnb for rental properties.
2. Hopper
Hopper made its name in the USA by being able to accurately predict future flight prices based on historical and forward-looking data to give insider info on when you should book your flights. After this success, they have now built out their offering to accommodation as well. With hotels they claim to save customers an average of $61. From looking at their app (best to download their app than stay web-based) the best savings are on last-minute deals.
3. Plum Guide
The Plum Guide was founded in 2016 and has two elements that make it different to Airbnb, firstly it only takes the top 3% of homes, basically curating a selection for its audience and secondly a huge focus on customer service/customer satisfaction. The downside is they only cover a limited number of places mainly in the USA and Europe currently.
4. Sondor
Sondor like Plum Guide is going for the customer service angle and only offering a certain standard of stay promising seamless check-in and a high standard of check-in with them being the property management company and dealing with all aspects of the customer experience. Again a limited number of places are covered but worth a look as an alternative to Airbnb.
5. FlipKey
FlipKey is part of the TripAdvisor group and claims to have around 830,000 properties listed in 190 countries. Their spin is that they combined their knowledge of homeowners with the 465m collective reviews they have on-site.
6. Onefinestay
onefinestay offers the finest homes and villas with a one-of-a-kind service to guests. This is seen as a luxury brand.
7. Booking.com
Booking.com doesn’t seem like an obvious choice given that they are most well-known for hotels. They do have a selection of rentals and apartments so you can easily book here. But if you can’t find anything across all these sites including Airbnb then you can just go for a good old-fashioned hotel stay.