Home Away – aka Homeaway.com, Vacationrentals.com, Vrbo.com, etc. announces that they will be advertising in February 2010 Super Bowl.  Vacation homeowners and managers report receiving emails advising them that Homeaway based in Austin, Texas will be advertising during Superbowl XLIV in Miami, Florida.

Great news for vacation rental owners and vacation rental directories as this will help draw even more attention to the value of renting a furnished vacation home as an alternative to staying in a hotel.  We blogged about this in the past - trying to squeeze families in a hotel room is tough and of course there is no privacy - Read our previous entry here  “We Choose Vacation Rentals over Hotel Rooms!” 

Would not be surprised to see a commercial of a family trying to squeeze into a hotel room and then seeing the light and renting a vacation home?  Will be fun to watch the game and the new commercial.  Way to go Homeaway!

Look for an announcement in the next week or so about the new owner panel launch and site updates.  By the way – Furnished Homes is searching well in a number of keyword categories at Google, Bing and Yahoo.

$39 standard and $99 preferred listings can now be paid monthly or quarterly via auto-pay with Google Checkout.  If you add a property or upgrade a vacation rental listing you will have these new options.  Basic listings continue to be free.  Happy Renting!

The Austin, Texas based company states that inquiries to owners is up 25 percent over last year and traffic to the site is up 20 percent over last year.

Furnishedhomes.com – Vacation Rentals by Map

Vacation rental map site Furnishedhomes.com secures and authenticates site for visitors with leading online SSL provider Comodo.  Furnished Homes domain name is authenticated by Comodo.com and provides for strong encryption for a secure HTTPS connection. 

Why Furnishedhomes.com chooses Comodo for online security?

Comodo is a leading global provider of Identity and Trust Assurance services on the Internet, with over 500,000 customers worldwide.

Headquartered in New Jersey with global offices in the UK, Ukraine and India, the company offers businesses and consumers the intelligent security, authentication and assurance services necessary to ensure trust in online transactions.

Comodo is the Higher Certificate Authority. Dedicated to keeping customers one step ahead, they have ensured that InstantSSL is 2048-bit ready to keep our customers safe for the next 20 years. Comodo customers do not need to worry about vulnerable 1024-bit certificates, and can rely on our SSL certificates to keep their website secure for years to come. Comodo has invested millions in their Research and Development labs that are consistently working to push boundaries and develop new exclusive technologies that make interacting online a safer venue for everyone.

Comodo’s current clients include IBM, Xerox and Hewlett Packard and NASA.

This is definitely NOT Vacationey!  Great pick honey!

Having owned or managed hundreds of vacation rentals I speak from experience when I ask – “Is your vacation rental vacationey?”  Often I am asked what does it take to turn a home into “a vacation home”.  That’s a great question!  Some homes quiet frankly were never meant to be vacation homes!  They are located in perhaps a really bad location, the owners just threw some furniture in the place from yard sales (read my previous blog “Down go the sales – Up go the Rentals“) or they are just too boring.

Let’s not get off track – I advocate for vacation rental owners, property managers and insist that travelers will not find a better value for their money than a vacation rental.  That being said let’s not push the run-down shack that you know when people arrive will say – “This is a vacation rental?”  Read more (”Deal or No Deal? Vacation Rental or Flop-House“)

You can view traveler guest reviews on sites like TripAdvisor, Flipkey (now part of TripAdvisor) and VRBO (Vacation Rentals by Owner) and now Furnishedhomes.com that will say something like - “This place has not been dusted in months, the furniture looks like it was from a flea market and we had to fight over the 1 fork in the drawer!  This is not a vacation rental!”

May seem like an exaggeration but travelers have personally told me about experiences like this.  If you are considering furnishing a rental home for vacationers or travelers just make sure it’s outfitted with everything that YOU would want if you were on vacation.  You would probably want high speed internet, linens, cookware, silverware, cable tv, patio seating, and more!  You may be able to get away with sparse furnishings in a corporate rental but don’t skimp if you plan on renting out your place more than a few times – no one will come back and they will tell others about it.

YES!  Vacationey – Great Pick Dear!

Travelers are very saavyand do alot of research prior to booking homes – they demand and scrutinize your best images, they want to know that you care and take pride in your place, they want to contact you direct, and they want the home to be as advertised.

Is your VRBO vacationey?  Furnish your rental tastefully and abundantly, take awesome photos, and advertise!

Thank you Margaret for posting a new property to the vacation rental map in Germany!  If you are a holiday homeowner or manager you should take a look at Margaret’s site for her self catering apartments in the Bavarian Forest.  The site goes to great lengths to provide the traveler with peace of mind.

What is peace of mind to a traveler?  A professional representation of the rentals, fantastic area info and suggestions, how to travel in the area, clear images and guest reviews.  When one visits Bavarian-Forest-Holidays.com you immediately get the feeling that this owner/manager cares. 

For example, they have taken the time to break down by month what you should expect if you are traveling to the area.  The monthly info includes the average temperatures, how busy the rental season is, what activities are best and what the month holds as to special occasions.

If you are considering a trip to The Bavarian Forest National Park, Germany or The Czech Republic check with them.  Here is the recently listed Bavarian Forest Mountain Village fully furnished apartment - rates range from $150 to $200 nightly.

Recent question to support team – “Your vacation rental offering is very good and listing fees are really low – do you take a commission for leads or bookings?”

Answer:  Nope.  When you list your vacation properties on the Furnished Homes map – you receive all the visitor inquiries.  Owners and property managers are contacted directly.  Furnished Homes is a listing venue and not a booking service.  In other words we do not take a piece of your pie.  You get the whole pie – Sweet!

What’s with the Download Google Chrome button on your homepage?  Furnished Homes runs better with Chrome.  Feedback from visitors and owners have shown us that IE (Internet Explorer) conflicts are the main issues for errors and problems that pop up as bugs at Furnished Homes. 

I think we can all agree that the Google folks now what they’re doing!  Very seldom do we have issues with Chrome and everything from the vacation rental map to the owners detail pages just plain look better on Chrome. 

So for those of you wondering why we put Download Google Chrome on the Furnishedhomes.com home page – simply because it works best for owners, travelers and us.  Give it a try today and see all of your websites in a better light!  If you are still using IE 5 or 6 you really need to take a look at Google Chrome. 

Furnishedhomes.com is not affiliated with Google.  The Furnishedhomes.com site is powered by a custom Google Maps API mashup.