Cut-Rate Villas For Rent

Last week, I received an email from an Italian villa rental agency: “Many of our larger villas have reduced prices for under-occupancy, depending on how many rooms you wish to take. This means you don’t have to pay maximum price if your group is under the maximum capacity.”  But guests still have the villa and grounds all to themselves.  So I started to wonder if this was an anomaly or if other villas and rental agencies were doing the same thing this summer.  I asked around, and here’s what I found.

Liz Beatty of HomesAway in Toronto said, “Basically, all bets are off regarding the rules of seven or eight months ago. Our Villa owners are offering any manner of deals, bending rules and offering extra stuff like chefs for the length of a stay.  Some deals are over 50% off.

At Luxury Retreats, these “tiered rates” are common.  Villa owners will set their nightly rates according to how many bedrooms the guests plan on using and not as a flat per-villa rate.  “It’s beneficial for both sides,” says spokeswoman Heather Whipps, “and opens up large villas to a wider market of travelers and preventing guests from overpaying for parts of the villa they may not use.”

Karen Kelly, a writer in New York, says that as a traveler, she sees this as a growing trend.  “In April we went to Anguilla; in the past they always said no to negotiating, the price was firm.  This time, we got an amazing deal on a villa right on the beach at less than $300 a night, a bargain by Anguillian standards.  We are going back to Anguilla in December (the start of their high season) and we rented a different villa, and again, the owner, through the agent, was willing to deal.  We’ll have a private villa, no neighbors, be right on the water with a private pool and grounds, two bedrooms, full kitchen (not a kitchenette), living room, flat screen TV and free Internet, again for around $300 a night.  A bargain for the island, or even other Caribbean islands. All I did was ask, and they were friendly, not insulted, and willing to work within our budget.”

But not every owner and agency is bowing to this trend.  BeautifulPlaces, with villas in Napa, Sonoma, Italy, France, and Mexico, finds the trend “Very strange, and we are not doing it,” a spokeswoman says.  “It’s like having someone reserve a room in a hotel and then telling them they can’t use the second bathroom in the suite or close the spa to them since they are paying a reduced rate.”

Lastly, villa prices are down substantially even if at full capacity, according to Tony Polzer of 3 Millennia Tours.  ”When it comes to a villa rental, normally it is rented as a whole unit, whether you fill only a fraction of it or the entire thing.  Throughout Italy, villa owners are currently slashing their prices so that they can have at least someone in the villa and make something,” he says.  “My girlfriend’s mother has a high-end luxury villa in Umbria that has 6 bedrooms, 6.5 baths, office, library, multiple patios, antiques, infinity pool, hot tub, detached pizza-making building, and soon a gym and a wine cellar.  This property maxes out at US$17-18k a week in high season (whether there are 4 people or 16).   She has recently let it out for only US$9k in high season.  Half-price!!!

“The economy is just so bad right now that things like this are increasingly common just so people can stay afloat,” he says.  “And this does not apply just to villa rentals. Even hotels (as well as 4* and 5*’s) are slashing their prices.   A room that might have been 500 Euros last summer might only be 250 – 300 Euros this summer.”

So what are you waiting for? There is NO better time to travel than now

By Lisa Rogak

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