Checklist before you book a holiday home: 10 points to go through

Most holiday homes deliver what they promise. When a trip still starts badly, it is rarely because the host wanted to cheat anyone. It is because something was never asked about. The distance to the beach turned out to be four kilometres rather than four hundred metres. The eight beds included a sofa bed in the living room. The final cleaning cost 950 kr., and it was mentioned in a note at the bottom of the listing.

You can guard against all of that in twenty minutes. Below are the ten points worth going through every time you book a stay, whether it is a summer house on the Danish west coast, an apartment in Copenhagen or a holiday home in southern Europe. Take them in order, and you will have the price, the practicalities and the paperwork under control before you pay.

1. Work out the total price, not the nightly rate

The nightly rate is marketing. The total price is what you should compare. Add it all up: rent, guest fee or service fee, final cleaning, bed linen and towels, electricity and water, tourist tax, any pet supplement and card fees.

The orders of magnitude are worth knowing. On the large booking platforms the guest fee is typically 14 to 16 % of the rent. If you book through a holiday home agency, the price often includes a commission to the agency of 25 to 45 %, which you never see itemised but which sits inside the rent. On a platform with no guest fee, such as FlyMHD, that line is 0 kr., and the rent is the host’s own price.

Try dividing the total price by the number of nights and the number of people. That figure is far more useful than the headline in the listing, and it often reorders the homes you had saved as favourites.

Under Danish marketing law the total price including mandatory fees must be stated clearly. The Danish Consumer Ombudsman supervises price marketing, and the rules can change over time, so check forbrugerombudsmanden.dk if you come across a price that only grows at the final step of the booking.

2. Find the home on a map, not in the listing text

“Close to the beach” and “centrally located” are elastic terms. Look up the address or the approximate area on a map and measure for yourself. Check three things at the same time that listings rarely mention: how far it is to the nearest grocery shop, whether there is a major road or railway within earshot, and how you get there without a car if you travel by train or plane.

For city apartments, the floor and the lift often matter more than the square metres. Fourth floor without a lift, with two suitcases and a pram, is a different holiday from fourth floor with a lift.

3. Read the photos as documentation, not as advertising

Good photos sell, but the right photos inform. Look for what is missing. Are there photos of every bedroom, or only of the nicest one? Is the bathroom included? Is there a shot of the house from outside and of the view from the terrace, or only close-ups of details?

Check the season too. A garden in full bloom in June says little about how the plot looks in October. If photos of a room you plan to use are missing, ask. A host who knows their property will happily send them.

4. Count beds, not people

“Sleeps 8” can mean four double beds, or two double beds, a bunk bed and a sofa bed. Ask for a breakdown room by room: how many beds, what size, and which rooms have a door.

If you are travelling as two families or a larger group, the distribution of bedrooms matters more than the total headcount. Two adults on a sofa bed in the room where everyone else is watching television ruins a week faster than a slightly higher price.

5. Read for what is not there

Descriptions tell you what exists. The checklist is about what does not. Go through these points and ask about any that are unanswered:

• Wi-fi, and whether the speed is enough for remote work or streaming
• Washing machine and tumble dryer, not just “laundry facilities”
• Dishwasher, oven and coffee machine, and which type of capsules
• Heating in winter, and what it costs if electricity is charged by consumption
• Air conditioning or ventilation in summer
• Cot, high chair and baby equipment
• Parking, number of spaces, and whether it is on a public street
• Pets, how many and what size
• Smoking, indoors and outdoors
• Stairs, level changes and accessibility

Ask one extra practical question

One question is worth its weight in gold: “Is there anything about the property that guests are often surprised by?” Most hosts answer honestly, and the answer reveals everything from a steep driveway to a neighbour who mows the lawn at seven in the morning.

6. Read the cancellation terms before you pay

The terms are the one place where a bad deal becomes expensive. Find out how long before arrival you can cancel at no cost, how much is refunded after that point, and what happens in case of illness or cancelled flights.

Note that the platform’s cancellation terms and your own insurance are two different things. Travel insurance or cancellation cover does not automatically include a holiday home, and the cover depends on the specific policy. Ask your insurer what is covered, and keep the answer in writing. Insurance terms change regularly.

If you booked flights and accommodation separately, you are not covered by the package travel rules in the same way as with a package holiday. The Danish Travel Complaints Board and the Consumer Ombudsman describe the difference, and the rules can change, so check the current guidance if a lot is at stake.

7. Look at how the money moves

There is a real difference between three situations: you pay a platform that holds the amount; you pay the host directly through a recognised payment provider; or you are asked to transfer to a private bank account or send money through an app with no buyer protection.

The first two are normal. The third is the classic setup for fraud. On FlyMHD the payment goes directly to the host via Stripe, the amount is reserved on your card, and it is only charged once the booking is confirmed. You pay by card, you get a receipt, and there is no guest fee on top.

If at any point you are asked to move the payment outside the system you started in, stop and ask why. It is the most reliable warning signal there is.

8. Message the host, and pay attention to the reply

Send a short message with two or three specific questions before you book. You get two pieces of information for the price of one: the answers, and how quickly and precisely they arrive.

A host who replies within a day with concrete answers is probably also the host who picks up the phone if the heat pump fails on a Sunday evening. A host who replies with a generic paragraph that does not address the question is worth a second thought.

9. Get arrival and departure in writing

Agree before you pay: check-in and check-out times, how you get the key, who to contact if you are delayed, and what is expected of you on departure. Some homes have a key box and flexible arrival, others require handover in person within a narrow window.

Ask what the final cleaning covers as well. Do you empty the dishwasher, sort the waste and strip the beds yourself? These are small things, but it is better to know them on day one than at six in the morning on the day you leave.

10. Keep everything in one place

Put the confirmation, the price breakdown, the address, contact details and the whole message thread in one folder or one email to yourself. Take a screenshot of the listing as it looks when you book. Listings get edited, and if there is later a disagreement about what was promised, the screenshot is what settles it.

The short version

If you are short on time, these five give you the most certainty per minute: work out the total price, find the home on a map, ask for a breakdown of the beds, read the cancellation terms, and never pay into a private account.

Book without fees when we open

FlyMHD is built on a simple idea: guests should pay for the property, not for the platform. There is a 0 kr. guest fee, the price you see is the host’s price, and the payment goes directly to the host via Stripe. Hosts pay a flat subscription instead of commission, so there are no hidden percentages that need to be squeezed into the rent.

We are getting ready to open for bookings. Sign up at flymhd.com and you will hear from us when the homes go live, so you can book without fees from day one. If you want to see how it works in practice, it is described on How it works. And if you want to dig into the fees themselves, we have done the maths in rent a summer house with no service fee.