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Booking a holiday rental for a group

Booking for a group is not booking for two with a bigger number typed in. The things that ruin a group weekend are all in the small print or missing from the photographs, so this list is what to read and what to ask before the deposit leaves your account.

32 items

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The items

  1. Know your number before you searchAdults, children, and anyone who is a maybe. Filter on the number who are actually coming.
  2. Beds, not sleeps
  3. Ask for a bedroom-by-bedroom breakdown
  4. Count double beds as one bed unless two people have agreed to share
  5. Find out where the sofa bed is and who is willing to take it
  6. Check there is more than one bathroom for more than six people
  7. Read the listing for what is missing
  8. No photograph of the kitchen usually means a small kitchen
  9. No oven, or two hobs, for a house that sleeps ten
  10. Stairs, a ladder to a mezzanine, or a room only reachable through another
  11. Heating, if it is anything but summer
  12. The money
  13. Total price including the cleaning fee and the tourist tax
  14. Divide it by the real number of people, not the maximum
  15. The deposit: how much, held how, returned when
  16. The cancellation deadline, written in your calendar
  17. Ask before booking
  18. Are bed linen and towels included, or hired, or brought?
  19. What time can we arrive, and what time must we be out?
  20. What does the end-of-stay cleaning have to cover?
  21. Is there any rule about noise, music or the number of guests?
  22. Is there parking, and for how many cars?
  23. Check the reviews written by groups, not by couples
  24. Look at the map, not the descriptionTwenty minutes from the village means twenty minutes each way, every time someone forgets the milk.
  25. Find the nearest supermarket and its Sunday hours
  26. Check the phone signal and whether there is wifi
  27. Confirm whether dogs are allowed, if anyone is bringing one
  28. Get the booking confirmation in writing, with the address on it
  29. Share the address, the access code and the owner's number with the group
  30. Ask how the keys are collected and by whom
  31. Note who arrives first and make sure they can get in
  32. Photograph the house on arrival, before the bags go down

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Questions people ask

How many beds does a group actually need?
Count real beds only. A listing that sleeps ten often means eight beds and a sofa bed in the room everyone walks through. Ask how many bedrooms, and how many beds in each, before you believe the headline number.
What should you ask the owner before booking?
The bed breakdown, whether linen and towels are included, the real check-in and check-out times, what the cleaning at the end has to include, and whether the house has any rule about noise or numbers.
Who is responsible for the deposit?
The person whose card paid it, which is why it is worth telling the group what the deposit is and what would cost them it. A broken glass is nothing; a burn on a table is the whole deposit.