Argentina, Buenos Aires Travel

Jun
16
2010

Are you considering traveling to Argentina? Buenos Aires travel is ever popular, even during a world recession, because Buenos Aires is still a relatively cheap travel destination.

Did you know that there is a flourishing alternative to expensive Buenos Aires hotels?

How do I save up to 60% on Argentina, Buenos Aires Accommodation?

The apartment rental industry is flourishing in Argentina and for those travelling to Buenos Aires who are already aware it is the travellers’ accommodation of first choice.

For over ten years, many travelers in the know have chosen vacation apartment as opposed to Buenos Aires hotels for many of good reasons:

Vacation rentals are up to 60% cheaper than comparable Buenos Aires hotels
Vacation rental apartments are located throughout the best and safest Buenos Aires Barrios
You get more space, choose the number of bedrooms, bathrooms and modern conveniences
Vacation apartments allow you to choose both barrio and often your preferred street
Vacation apartments are available from around USD$150 per week
Buenos Aires apartments offer a lot more privacy and flexibility
Vacation apartments provide a home away from home

Argentina, Buenos Aires travel & Vacation Apartments

Apartment rents start at around USD$150 each week. Budget apartments are budget – check out Buenos Aires leading provider of cheap Buenos Aires apartments.

Some travelers looking for Buenos Aires luxury accommodation pay up to USD$7000 a week for their apartments and we suggest that you check out Buenos Aires leading provider of luxury accommodation.

What do I mean by budget Buenos Aires Apartments?

You get what you pay for. The company I represent in Argentina, Buenos Aires Stay, has a ‘tell it like it is policy’.

I therefore point out that apartments under USD$400 a week offer travelers basic studio or one bed accommodation for up to four guests – no thrills and no luxuries, but most apartments have balcony, kitchen facilities, internet, cable TV and some even have communal sun-deck, pool and even a gym!

The apartments offered by Buenos Aires Stay should always be clean and tidy but low-cost accommodation is sometimes a little tired – to be perfectly honest, if four guests rent a small apartment for USD$400 a week, that’s just USD14 bucks each a night and I ask what you would really expect for that sort of money? Moreover, 4 guests in a small apartment means that apartments can get tired quickly and low rents mean low investment by owners – there you have it.

Buenos Aires Stay ‘police’ properties by inspecting them and employ unique systems that includes check-in compliance reports that clearly demonstrate when apartments start to develop problems and thus problems usually resolve before a property becomes prone to complaints! It works!!

Most apartments come with a cleaning service if you are staying longer than a week and fresh linens and towels weekly.

Budget and luxury accommodation is not without its problems and you will read numerous complaints from travelers – I point out here that apartments are not unlike your own home and things do go wrong, BA Stay guarantees to work with tenants to ensure property owners put those problems right. Please be cautious of traveler reviews on websites (publishers) that also sell rental accommodation to travelers – they compete against established providers in Buenos Aires and use forums to drive traffic (you) to their commercial enterprises .

I think the apartment rental companies in Buenos Aires generally get a raw deal from these publishers (competitors) that often delete their responses to dubious complaints and employ experts (some are their advertisers) to support their ‘grubby’ marketing.

A last point is that there are only a certain number of properties for rent in Buenos Aires and most rental agencies ‘carry the same stock’ and therefore problem properties and owners are everyone’s problem. If and agency does not have good systems they will not pick up the problem properties and owners until it is too late!

In South America, apartments are the South American travelers’ accommodation of choice and both Argentines and Brazilians have been wise to this fact for many years!

How do I find a reputable vacation apartment provider in Buenos Aires?

Firstly, avoid booking directly with owners. What do you do if something goes wrong, not a lot unfortunately, owners usually have just one property and that leaves them and you with little room to maneuver.

When writing this article, please note that if you are not happy or feel that either BA Stay or Buenos Aires Stay did not provide services subject to published their terms and conditions, my email address is help@sos-prop.com and I am happy to help you resolve any issues – this is my recommendation and the buck stops here with me.

Some cast iron guarantees from Buenos Aires Stay and BA Stay

It is important that we reaffirm both our standards and the service level agreement that benefits all clients who rent apartments via Buenos Aires Stay and BA Stay.

Potential clients will find these standards and our terms of business published to both websites.

Moreover, the exact same information we repeatedly send out as standard sales templates, quotes and confirmations to all our clients before they check-in.

There is no room for misunderstandings as we also try to speak to clients both during the sales process and before check-in to reaffirm our agreement.

Our team inspect all apartments and there is not one apartment published to our websites with without us confirming:

Number of rooms
Type of rooms
Cross Streets
Amenities
M2

When clients rent BA Stay or Buenos Aires Stay apartments, they receive a ‘cast iron guarantee’ – IF YOUR APARTMENT IS NOT AS ADVERTISED YOU DO NOT HAVE TO CHECK-IN AND WE RELOCATE OR REFUND.

Further, we tell clients – ‘Please print your reservation confirmation and property particulars, and bring that information to your check-in.’

Uniquely, we have a check-in compliance team in Buenos Aires that we contract, they are independent and act according to our rigorous training – check out Buenos Aires Experience, our team who looks after you during your vacation.

All clients go through a check in compliance process where ‘main electrical appliances and apartment features are shown, we instruct on use, and any problems are inventoried as a signed agreement between all parties showing that we have provided service subject to our service level agreement.

We audit check-in compliance notes; they are business critical and measure the quality of our service and the standard of published properties.

At the time of publishing property particulars, the properties are as advertised – since owning and operating the above web brands, we have removed over 320 apartments, 208 within the first six months of owning our website, because of poor standards, or because the operating methods of owners were contrary to our standards:

An apartment is only as good as the last tenant and the money spent by owners maintaining their properties. We police this or we would not be in business and nor would we have so many positive reviews from happy clients from over the world.
We price our apartments according to their type and standard.
We offer a ‘cast iron guarantee’ that clients will always have an apartment that is clean and as described in the owner’s property particulars or clients do not have to check-in and we will move them to an alternative apartment or refund them at the owner’s expense.
There are no properties published to our websites that state bedroom and bathroom numbers incorrectly.
All of our check-in compliance notes for this year were so far positive and should a client wish to verify this statement, we are happy to publish their contemporaneous signed reports via our website.
Rents published to our websites are final and our clients pay only a USD$45 fee if they check-in during normal office hours.
Clients at all ends of the market seek value – we administrate reservations, produce contracts, send out a concierge to check-in clients and provide 24/7 telephone support all for just USD45 and our clients tell us that is great value.
We do pre-inspect apartments before a vacation rental by written agreement with all parties at the time of making a reservation at an additional cost to the client.
We charge owner’s contingent publishing fee of between 10% and 20% of their rent, we do not levy excessive charges to clients and our rents are some of the lowest and most reasonable in Buenos Aires. We also operate a lowest rent guarantee.

An important point, ‘you can lead a horse to water, but you cannot make it drink’. Clients, subject to our agreement, should state their unhappiness during check-in compliance or use our 24/7 emergency helpline when they have a problem.

Failing to use our published complaints procedure or not reporting a problem is unhelpful, as it stops us putting matters right for you and future clients – when finding a problem just holler, we will respond immediately to telephone complaints and within 24-hours to emails, and we are proactive to help our clients. We record all complaints and outcomes.

In this bicentennial year, BA Stay and Buenos Aires Stay are five years old. We are serious minded business folk, we are client focused and we strive to achieve exacting standards.

We do not always get it 100% right. However, we do ‘live and die’ by our terms of business guaranteeing to always use best endeavors to put problems right 100% of time.