Protect Yourself! Follow these Critical Guidelines to Ensure a Great Vacation!
The General Guidelines
Since 1997, owners on alluraDirect.com have been successfully hosting customers from all over the world. alluraDirect.com has tens of thousands of loyal customers, most of whom return to alluraDirect.com for subsequent vacations due to their great previous experiences.
The vast majority of guest experiences are enormously successful and our track record suggests that yours will be to! Nevertheless, we want to give you some advice that will ensure that your owner-direct booking goes smoothly and that you end up joining our group of really happy guests!
Owners on this Site are Legally Required to Meet Minimum Expectations-Owners take their responsibilities on this directory seriously - that is why customers keep coming back to our web site. These responsibilities are outlined in a contractual agreement with alluraDirect.com that defines basic common sense operational guidelines intended to protect your interests.
Owners are committed to ensuring that you have a great experience - their businesses depend on it!
We can't proactively guarantee Owner compliance because we are an owner-direct lodging company and each operation is independently managed by its owner. We can't proactively police our owner-clients, nor can we issue any guarantees on their behalf. Instead, we bind owners to a Subscription Agreement that gives us the right to de-list them should the terms be violated in any way.
What Happens After Something Goes Wrong-We actively de-list owners who we feel are violating operational standards in a manner that risks negatively impacting on your vacation experience; however, keep in mind that this usually only happens after the fact..meaning that something has to go wrong first, before the owner gets kicked off the directory. That means that your vacation may be negatively affected if your owner violates the standards in a way that seriously impacted your vacation in a legitimately negative way.
How to Proactively Prevent Anything From Going Wrong before you Make a Financial Commitment-Remember, we are committed to following through on customer complaints and delist owners to keep our directory consistent and up to a high standard.
Although guests typically have a great experience using alluraDirect.com and you will too, there are many proactive steps that you can take to ensure that your vacation is successful beyond your wildest expectations. We encourage you to read through this section and to take our advice verbatim. This will ensure that you don't fall through the cracks by booking with an owner that may be engaged in practices that risk negatively impacting your vacation in a tangible and obvious way and against whom we have not yet received any complaints.
15 Tips for a Totally Easy, Smooth and Hassle Free Owner-Direct Booking!
Follow these simple tips and you will have a great, easy and incredible vacation!
1-Book Early-The best places sell out fast. What was available yesterday, may not be available today, since alluraDirect.com's inventory changes by the second, as guests do live bookings on the site every single minute of the day and night!
2-Get a Copy of the Owner's Web Site on Your Computer-Whatever is publicly stated on owner web sites represents a minimum guarantee-Anything that is publicly advertised on the owner's web site is a minimum guarantee that you can hold the owner accountable to. If it is not in black and white on the web, then anything promised and not delivered is merely your word against the owners in any dispute. If an owner is promising an amenity or service, or policy that is important to you, make sure that it is on their web site for public consumption!
Retain an offline copy of their web site at the time of booking! It is a great idea to keep a copy of the terms of your agreement, which is in part reflected on their web site, on your hardrive.
This is easy to do.
Simply go to each critical pages of their web site and click Save As from the File menu on your browser.
3-Get the Exact Property Location!-Make sure that the property location is clearly described on the Owner's web site. The property description should include its walking and driving distance to critical amenities, as well as the development and/or neighbourhood. For security reasons, most owners will not give you an exact address, however, they should give you enough street information to locate the property on a map. One person's idea of ski-in/out may not be yours! Always check the map to independently confirm the location!
4- Use the Owner's Reserve Now Button-This documents your reservation and enables the owner to track the progress of your reservation through an objective third party server. An owner cannot cancel a confirmed reservation that has been added through this mechanism, without triggering an automatic notification to you. Moreover, if any problems occur, we can retrieve date and time-stamped documentation about any incidents. Both the owner and our company are bound by Canadian privacy laws.
5- Pay Online-This gives you security, privacy and convenience, and allows you to pay in the currency of your choice, on your time. Your credit card information is not visible or accessible to the owner when you pay online. Your credit card information is not retained within our system and is handled directly by Canada's chartered banking system. Owners who use the online payment system also go through additional screening steps and have agreed to additional rules intended to protect you. Although we confirm property title information, we have no control over what happens after an owner joins. Although fraud has never happened our on our site as result of some internal precautions that we take, you can actively eliminate the risk of losing your money completely, by paying online. Since it costs you nothing and you can win loyalty rewards like air miles, and benefit from credit card programs like travel insurance, why not just eliminate any risks?
Reservation tracking through the use of the online payment system significantly increases the likelihood that we can assist you if you experience problems like: you forgot your check-in information, lost your check-in information or experience in-resort check problems.
All owners have access to the online payment system. It is affordable and comparable to standard merchant rates. We do not collect additional expensive reservation commissions through this program!
6- Pay on Time!-Owners will cancel your reservation if you fail to pay by their due dates.
7-Get the Right Documentation-Always get everything in writing, including the policies, prior to, and subsequent to, each payment made to the owner.
8- Make Sure the Property is Listed on alluraDirect.com-If it is not listed on alluraDirect.com, it is not subject our review and complaint process. In fact, we simply can't help you if something goes wrong in a property not listed on our site, even if an owner or contact isted on our site referred you to it.
9- Check the Availability Calendar-Has the owner added your reservation to their calendar? If not, then other site users think that it is still available, and your booking could be at risk of human error and your time double booked. Make sure that the owner blocks off your dates to ensure a smooth reservation experience. If you insist on paying online, when you make payment, the dates will automatically be blocked off on the Owner's calendar. There is no risk of the dates being double-booked.
10-How to Check the Owner's Legitimacy-Ask for references from past guests or call the local resort association to confirm their membership. Alternatively, feel free to call our office to confirm their membership and inquire about their complaint record.
11- Get the Property and Check-In Information-Never leave home without the property access information and instructions EVER!!
12- Get Emergency Contact Information-Never leave home without first having the Owner's in-resort emergency contact information.
13-Know the Basic Standards-If you are in doubt about any owner and their conduct, check out our owner Terms of Service Agreement and follow the complaints process if necessary.
14-Cancellations-Make sure you clearly understand the Owner's cancellation policies. If you do need to cancel, do so as early as possible so that owners have a higher chance of rebooking your dates. Last minute cancellations make it hard for owners to rebook their property and refund you.
To further protect yourself in the case of unforeseen cancellations, purchase ski travel insurance! Ski travel insurance can help ensure you are reimbursed in situations when owners can't fully refund you.
15-Refunds-If an owner owes you a refund, take the cash in the present, rather than a future booking credit. They could sell the property in the interim and you will be out of luck.