We are starting to see more and more people opt to take more holidays for a shorter period of time. Hoseasons have responded to this change in demand by offering holidaymakers the option to book more properties on a short break option. So popular has this been that they have seen a 25% increase so far this year with customers booking short breaks.

It is now so easy to book holiday cottages online for a long weekend break and families are now getting used to the idea of a lot of short breaks rather than one long holiday. We see this trend even stronger in The States as Americans have been staying in short break villas for years. It seems as though the culture of taking a shorter holiday more frequently is really catching on in the U.K.

Here at Compareaway we have also seen a big increase in couples staying in apartments for a long weekend. We noticed a sharp increase in bookings for last weekend which we can only put down to Valentines Day falling on a weekend and those romantics out there taking their loved ones on a romantic getaway.

My son recently flew from the U.K to Florida and could not get a direct flight. In the end he caught an Aer Lingus flight to Dublin and then an Aer Lingus flight on to Orlando. The flight worked out far cheaper than flying direct with Virgin or BA and he was very impressed with the service.

It then got us kinda talking at the Compareaway Head Office of how many different flights we would be prepared to take to save money. There are now just so many different options out there and if you are prepared to search around and take a stop over you can save a lot of money. I think I’d be prepared to take one stop over but after that you are starting to try my patience. Anyway after the way Aer Lingus performed I’d certainly give them a try.

CompareAway.com has joined the government backed Know Before You Go (KBYG) campaign.

The aim of the campaign is to ensure British holiday makers have access to excellent information covering everything you need to know when abroad. It covers topics from adequate insurance to immunisation recommendations.

We get loads of requests to join and promote stuff to you, but we are always very choosy. In this instance we felt it was a perfect match for our customers, who typically choose self catering holiday rentals and need a good source of reliable travel advice and information.

They also offer a useful Travellers Checklist and, while fingers crossed you won’t need it, they offer advice should a member of your self catering holiday rental party get arrested!! There is also advice on what to do if you need access to emergency cash, get seriously ill and a dozen other outcomes that most of us don’t want to consider.

My view is that it is all pretty obvious stuff, but having it already written down for you saves a load of time and hassle. The site also works pretty well on the iPhone and Blackberry browsers so you can even access it from the beach!

Following the good news that Thomas Cook are adding five more flights a week from Manchester to Florida this summer, Disney yesterday come out with bullish numbers. Against all expectations they seem to be bucking the trend. We have seen this in recent months at Compareaway.com with a strong demand for holiday villas in Florida. Disney are now planning further expansion in their parks in Orlando and there is talk about them doing something with the Spiderman brand that they have recently acquired.

With Universal soon to open the new Harry Potter ride we expect demand for holiday rentals in Florida to further strengthen this year and our advice is for customers to book their self catering apartments and villas in Orlando now while there are still good deals to be had. When you check out the new add for the Harry Potter ride be sure to look out for Durham Cathedral that was used as a location in some of the earlier films.

With the return of the cold snowy weather to the U.K this week many families are feeling fed up and wanting some summer sun to cheer them up. This may explain the spike in summer bookings for holiday rentals that we have experienced in the past couple of days.

Speaking of snow, our very own Chris Bradley came to the aid of a damsel in distress yesterday. When he was driving into work yesterday he saw the car in front of him suddenly skid off the road and land upside down in a ditch. Never being one to shirk his responsibilities our dashing knight in white armour pulled up and rescued the poor lady. Chris had to smash the back window of the car and drag the lady out as the doors could not be opened. We say “Well done Chris”.

I guess I used to be a hotel sort of person when I was younger. But then came along marriage, three kids and a mortgage and before you knew it those days of staying in hotels became a real bind and a big financial burden.

It got to the stage that I was dreading going on holiday if we were staying in a hotel. I suppose my biggest bug bear was the cost of the whole thing – it was like I needed to take out a second mortgage to finance the thing. What was even worse was being shut in the same room night after night. A real problem for us was that when the children went to bed we were then also confined to the hotel room. Don’t get me wrong, but surely the whole point of going on holiday is to enjoy yourself and not to get stressed out.

Eventually I saw the light and got my wife to book us a holiday villa (Yep my wife gets all those sort of jobs in our household). At first I was a little cautious as the villas that she was coming back with for me to look at were so good and I just could not believe what good value that they were. Taking a deep breath we took the plunge and booked a holiday villa in Spain for two weeks. That was eight years ago and we have been staying in holiday rentals ever since.

Gone are the days of having to take out a second mortgage to go on holiday. No more nights of being confined to hotel rooms once the kids go to bed. After eight years of staying in holiday villas around the world I’m proud to say that I’m now definitely a holiday rental home sort of guy.

More U.K families are planning on staying in holiday villas this year as confidence returns to the travel industry. Recent research carried out by First Rate Exchange Services has shown that consumers are definitely looking to start booking foreign holidays again with a staggering 58% of holidaymakers stating that they plan to book a holiday abroad this year.

We are seeing this boost in confidence as this January we have had a record number of bookings of ski chalets and holiday villas here at Compareaway.com. It seems as though we are all getting sick of this doom and gloom and the recent cold spell has given us the incentive to book a holiday home in the sun to give us something to look forward to.

This increase in confidence is reflected by Ryanair who have announced that they plan to add new routes from East Midlands and Stansted airports. This means that it is now possible to book holiday villas in Fuerteventura, self catering apartments in Fez and holiday homes in Figari and depart from Stansted using Ryanair’s new services.

It will also be possible to travel to self catering holiday villas in Fuerteventura from the beginning of May from East Midlands again traveling with Ryanair. Further good news is that Ryanair plans to open twenty five new routes across Europe from April this year. This means that families wanting to stay in holiday rentals will now have even more choice as where to fly from and at even more competitive air rates. We at Compareaway.com say  - Keep up the good work Ryanair!

Well it makes a lot of sense to us.

If you live in the UK, it can’t have escaped your attention that Comparing Products and Services is right at the forefront of consumers minds.  Turn on the TV or do a search in Google for an iPod. You’ll see them everywhere because they make our lives significantly easier.

When I want to buy something, I usually know the top 4 or 5 companies I will buy it from. Question is, who has what I want, when I want it and at the best price?  For that I need a comparison site.

Now, the one thing worse than no comparison site is a comparison site that is out of date or missing half the information. That is just rubbish, but you see them on the Internet all of the time. That is why we have invested a load of time and effort in integrating our site with all of the main players in the Holiday Rental market.

We show you all of the images, all of the information and CRUCIALLY, real-time pricing and availability.  So what you see is what you get….there is no going through to the Agent only to find out that the rental was sold last week or that the price is actually £300 more.

That is all except James Villas who are not yet able to supply this. But we are working with them to bring you that ASAP :-).

If we come across an Agent who we feel is making things more difficult than they need to be we’ll tell you and, if required, shoot a quick video to show you how to get around the issue. We’ve already done this with Hoseasons who automatically add 2 insurances to their holiday prices, which is fine, but they then make it very difficult to remove them if you don’t need them.

If you find any issues with any of the Agents we compare, let us know and we will either sort it out or make a video showing a work around. Our goal is to show you how to get the best and lowest price holiday rentals in the UK.

Last week we released our new website redesign.

We have spent the last 6 months getting feedback from anyone who would give us it, and as a result made some significant changes. These changes include:

· No BS. No clutter. Just a straight forward search for holiday rentals straight from the page you land on.

· Results are displayed in blocks of 4 next to each other so you can easily compare them. You can see 8 properties at any given time on most browsers.

· You can see all of the images on the results page – just click the “<PREV” or ”NEXT>” link under the images – saving you viewing profiles of properties you don’t like the look of.

· You can filter down to find your exact property from within the results page.

· Added shortlist functionality with the ability to save the shortlist to your browser favourites.

· Generally tidied up the look and feel to make the site easier to use.

Other changes include making the landing pages (such as the homepage) load faster. One unforeseen problem is that we have managed to make the results page return results slower than before. We are working on this now as priority and I apologise for a little slowness – it will be sorted quickly.

What else we been up to?

Well, we are about to add the awesome Sykes Cottages in the next day or so. I love their super low pricing for cottages that have been inspected and guaranteed by the Sykes team. They are amazing value. Sykes only charge £29.50 booking fee over what is effectively private owner pricing. That fee covers their agents being available to help you 7 days a week and most evenings, as well as making sure the property is inspected and exactly as described. They also take credit/debit cards with secure online payments. Hassle free booking at rock bottom prices!! Just as we like it.

Sykes Cottages will be listing their excellent Holiday Cottages here on Compare Away.

We love Sykes cottages because they hand pick the 1000 holiday cottages they manage, based primarily in England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales.

All of their cottages are subject to their rigorous quality assurance programme. They make sure they check out every property and have that small agency feel, backed up by a large company.

We will have their properties added within the next couple of weeks.

As mentioned last week, we have never been 100% happy that the property types entered have been accurate enough. So we have now completed the exercise of manually reviewing all 120,000 properties and making changes where needed. To say that was a big task is a bit of an understatement!

With the work done, you can now search by property type with confidence.

There is always an issue with “Home”. For example a 4-bedroom property in Spain is a Villa, yet in England is a house. That’s a clear cut example. But some places have houses and villas or gites.

We have taken a fairly pragmantic stance on catagorising these and think it’s the best balance. However, if you want to see everything you will want to add the “Home” filter.

Now we are moving on to a better feature based search, focussing on features such as private pools etc.

Does search improvement ever end?

Cottages4You are the next agent to join us here at CompareAway.

Cottages4You have over 9000 UK based cottages and  around 5000 European cottages and villas. Their range is second to none and we are in the process of adding these properties over the coming week or so.

In the rental business for 30 years, they say they offer more holiday cottages and villas than anyone else. Perhaps more importantly, they ensure that each one is inspected to ensure your peace of mind.

We now personally visit the offices of every new agent we work with, and were really impressed with how the cottages4you group operate. We saw first hand their truly massive operation, with a call centre for sales and support as well as a fully supported and managed business functions throughout. Very impressive.

As you would expect, Cottages4You are ABTA approved for your protection.