As I’ve often noted, a vacation rental is often the most economical and convenient way to arrange accommodations at a vacation destination. For minimum cost, I normally recommend renting through one of the big online agencies with thousands of listings. But you can sometimes do even better if you bypass a listing site and contact an owner directly.

These days, more and more owners are posting their properties on the big online “want ad” sites – Craigslist and Kijiji. Although these sites may cut your costs a bit, however, you may also run some added risks by using them.

Both sites are easy to navigate:

On Craigslist, you first enter the area where you want to rent, then check “vacation rentals” under “housing” for listings. On my spot checks, all listings were in English, either as a default or an option, and you can screen the raw lists by several factors.

Kijiji works about the same way, except that the original listings are in a local language for foreign rentals. Detailed property listings, however, are in English.

I saw some outstanding prices when I was browsing through both Web sites, including two-bedroom European cottages for under $1,000 a week. Many of the listings are obviously identical to those on the major rent-from-owner sites that charge listing fees. Some, though, cover the type of rental you seldom see on other sites: personal homes available for between a few weeks and a month or two while the owners are away somewhere else on vacation.

“Caveat emptor” is the watchword whenever you buy anything from an unmanaged “want ad” site like Craigslist. The big vacation rental sites, such as Vacation Rentals by Owner, exercise at least some supervision over their listings: They de-list sellers who have misrepresented their offerings or taken money under false pretenses. Not so with Craigslist: You’re on your own to protect your payment, and the risks of a problem are higher when you pay months in advance for a rental than when you buy merchandise from someone who lives in your community.

I suspect most of you will rent through one of the big rental specialist sites. The largest operator in this marketplace is Home Away, which has acquired a group of individual sites with an aggregate of more than 250,000 worldwide listings.

The most useful sites for typical travelers are Home Away (

www.homeaway.com

) for worldwide coverage; Vacation Rentals by Owner (VRBO,

www.vrbo.com

) for U. S. and Canada; and Holiday-Rentals (

www.holidayrentals.co.uk

) for Europe. Among the other large sites are 1st Choice Vacation Rentals (

www.choice1.com

), Rentalo (

www.rentalo.com

), For Getaway (forgetaway. weather.com) and VacationRoost (

www.vacationroost.com

). For minimum risk, consider renting through one of the many online vacation rental agencies that inspect and screen all properties they list. Posted descriptions are based on inspections by agency staff rather than whatever the owner might submit. Your financial deal is with the agency, which must cope with any complaints or problems.

I know of dozens of such agencies –far too many to list here –most of which specialize in major U. S. resort areas, the Caribbean, England, France and Italy. You can easily locate them by Googling your area of interest plus “vacation rentals.”

The tradeoff here is obvious: The “want ad” sites may have some of the lowest prices, but the risks of disappointment are highest. Throughowner sites usually give reasonably low prices, and the bigger ones provide at least some protection against misrepresentation. The lowest risk is renting through an agency that has actually inspected the properties it arranges, but, of course, you’ll pay more for that reassurance.

However you arrange it, most vacation rentals require full prepayment, often months in advance, and most provide very limited refunds for cancellations. I strongly recommend trip-cancellation insurance any time you arrange a rental.