Whistler, British Columbia, Canada is one of North America's luxury winter and summer time vacation resorts. Whistler, and Vancouver, will be home to the 2010 Winter Olympics. Between the luxury accommodation market and a major global event landing right in Whistler, consumers are seeking high and low for affordable accommodations and lodging while visiting Whistler Blackcomb mountain. We'll provide a brief overview of where and how you can save money on your next vacation rental in Whistler, while still living like a king in this luxury resort.

My knowledge on this subject matter comes from years of spending weekends and week long trips in Whistler. Born and raised in Vancouver, as a local you learn about the tips and tricks on how to save money in these luxury tourist destinations.

Whistler Accommodations

Whistler offers a variety of accommodations for vacation travelers and visitors to stay. The lodging and accommodations range from condos, hostels, apartments, town homes and hotels. One of the best places to stay is directly in Whistler Village as this gives you immediate access to all the Whistler restaurants, night clubs and bars, shopping and is located at the base of Whistler and Blackcomb mountain. Staying at the base of the mountain is ideal in the winter as you're just walking distance to the ski lifts that take you up either Whistler mountain, or Blackcomb mountain. Accommodation rentals in the village are between condominiums and hotels. Staying in one of these places is typically done by placing reservations directly through the hotel, or through a property management company.

One of the best ways to save on an accommodation rental in the village through a hotel is to provide some proof your a BC resident, as from time to time they offer special deals to the locals. However, you won't find this during the peak season. The alternative is to use air points or check the Entertainment book for a deal. Now, the condo accommodations located in the village are typically operated by the property management companies, however there are a variety of these owned and managed by the property owner themselves. This is know as owner-direct accommodations. Finding an accommodation directly through an owner can save you alot of money if there is a high vacancy rate or ideally a last minute deal. Though difficult thing is finding these owners who rent their accommodations directly. This is where you'll find the best bargains - doing owner direct. There are very few sites online offering owner-direct accommodation rentals in Whistler, however if you search Google you'll find them. Though be aware, some of these are functioning as the property management company or middle man, so you may end up paying additional fees for using their service. There are however other sites that don't do this, and connect you directly to the owner of the vacation rental. Bamja.com is one I've used before. Good site, easy to use, costs me nothing and puts me in direct contact with the Whistler owners. A few things I like about this site over others aside from not charging me or passing on middle man fees to the owners, is that they offer a few unique tools to have me in my Whistler accommodation search. For example, I can browse and book mark places that I like, I can contact the owner directly without any hassle, I can search by location via a Google map in their site. This is a really nice feature as with most sits the accommodations listings don't really give you a perspective on where the location of the accommodation. There is another site like this called www.whistler-accommodations.org.

Renting directly from owners is one of the best ways to go to get a great deal on an accommodation in Whistler. Whistler is a superb luxury resort, and the number of times I've been there I've had incredible memorable experiences. We found one owner direct accommodation for a weekend for only $99 a night (two of us) and had a private hot tub. The place was small, but the location was killer.

Accommodations in Whistler operated by the owners also tend to give you greater opportunity for amenities offered than a hotel or other managed accommodation. There are many homes and town homes owned by owners that give you a full kitchen, internet access, access to their bikes and other sporting gear, seclusion and privacy and private hot tubs.

Owner direct accommodations in Whistler also provides greater flexibility for the renter when it comes to discounts or special offers. Typically the property management companies receive a higher volume of renter requests, so they can easily fill the vacancies, but owners, unless their doing good marketing to fill their vacancies they may have more open vacancies for lack of renter volume...giving you more leverage to negotiate.

Next time you're looking for a rental accommodation in Whistler, or even for the upcoming 2010 winter Olympics, try inquiring directly with property owners in Whistler. If you find the right place for the right cost, you won't regret it.