Why?
Save time and stop paying massive amounts of money for limited homestay information.
Perfect Homestay presents you with a perfect way to choose a perfect homestay from our continually growing database.
- Instantly search availability times of homestay room/s throughout the year.
- No hassles receiving schedules from a homestay program; access homestay schedules autonomously.
- Search for millions of homestays all around the world.
- Homestays upload a large amount of home and family details, images and messages, giving you the best possible opportunity to find a perfect family and home.
- No computer knowledge necessary in our database has been constructed to make your effort minimal.
- Find out and be advised about homestays that are searching for a guest wanting to stay in their area. Express your interest before they allocate the room to another person (coming soon).
- Eliminate the middle-man - Let our database put you in direct contact with the homestays and save everybody time and money.
- Because you receive a large amount of details before making a choice, you both stand a far greater chance of getting what you want and enjoying a better experience.
How to use this site?
Please also see our "flash presentation movie" on the homepage for instructions.
- Step 1 - Register - If you don't register you can only see basic family details.
- Step 2 - Go to either the Browse or Search page.
- Browse - here you can browse homestays by country and city. Choose a city you are interested in visiting and view all the homestays in that area.
- Search - you can use this page to do a detailed search. Search by location, pets, smoking or number of children etc.
- Step 3 - When you see a homestay you are interested in, click on the "more" button to
view detailed family information. You will need to log in with your username
and password before you do this.
- Step 4 - Bookmark the families you are interested in, and keep looking for other families until you have at least 5 or 6 to choose from.
- Step 5 - Go to the My Profile page and you can view all your bookmarked homestays.
- Step 6 - When you have chosen which homestays you wish to apply to, go to the payment system, via the bookmarked homestays, and make your payment through PayPal.
- Step 7 - You will be issued 3 tickets and you can then go to the families detail page, via bookmarks, search or browse and apply to contact 3 families telling them the dates that you wish to stay with them.
- Step 8 - An email request is automatically sent to the families containing a "yes" or "no" button.
- Step 9 - When you receive a "yes" reply from a homestay, you can click the confirm button in the email to automatically send confirmation that you will stay with them. Your remaining tickets are then cancelled.
- Step 10 - Your contact details are sent to the homestay and the homestays contact details are sent to you. Go to our Helpful page and you will find pre-prepared letters that you can send to the homestay to help you continue to make the final arrangements.
How much?
Once you have found your choice and are ready to request the homestay's contact details - you will need to buy a ticket which costs a 1-time fee of $20 = 3 tickets. This means you can express your interest to 3 homestays. This process continues until the homestay of your choice has accepted you and the database has made contact on your behalf. We are certain you will not need to send many requests to achieve this.
Really?
We guarantee 100% satisfaction. If you can not find a suitable homestay of your choice, we will refund your money - no questions asked.
- Applicable within 60 days of purchase
- Applicable before contact details received
Uploading images
Uploading photos onto PerfectHomestay.com
- There are a few places on Perfect Homestay which allow you to upload your images. These are easily identifiable by a button next to the image box saying, `Browse`
- Click the `Browse` button and a dialogue box will open.
- Choose the `Look in` option at the top of the box, and select the folder where you previously saved your pictures.
- Select the picture you wish to upload by double clicking on it.
- The maximum file size of your image must be 2 megabytes.
- Once you have uploaded all the images you want, select the `SUBMIT` button, at the bottom of the page.
- Your images will now be visible on the website. Search for your homestay and take a look
How to Convert Your Prints into Digital Format for Upload onto PerfectHomestay.com.
We appreciate that some people may not own a digital camera and so we have put together these guidelines to help you convert your photos into digital format.
There are 2 main options available to you. You can take the photographs to a professional photographer and ask him to convert them into digital format for you, or if you possess a scanner, you can scan the photos directly into your computer. In some places, your local Internet cafe may be able to do this for you.
Follow the steps below if you need step by step advice on how to use your scanner.
- Make sure the glass bed of your scanner is clean and dry.
- Lay the picture face-down on the glass bed of the scanner.
- Open the scanner software on your computer.
- Click on the "Preview" button. Your picture will appear on the computer screen. Ensure that it is in the right place and the right way up.
- Select the area of the picture that you wish to scan by using your mouse to move the dotted outline around your photo. Everything inside the dotted line will be scanned.
- If have you an option to set the resolution, select 72 dpi.
- Once you are satisfied with your photo, click on `Scan`.
- Once the picture has been scanned, you need to save it in jpg format. The Save As dialog box will appear. Store the image in your preferred folder, give it a unique file name and select .jpg as the file format. Click `Save` and your scan is complete.
- The image should be no more than 2 megabytes in order to be uploaded to the website. Find the image and right click the mouse button and choose properties. You can then see the file size.
If you take your photos to a photographer, he will put the converted photos onto a CD for you. You can then save them onto your computer. Store the image in your preferred folder, give it a unique file name and upload the .jpg files to the PerfectHomestay.
Ticketing system
How do I buy tickets?
After you search for a homestay using the search utility on the "Search for Homestay" button, you will be taken to a list of homestays. Choose "more info..." when you find a homestay you´re interested in then you will see a "buy ticket" button.
Why do I get 3 tickets?
Some homestays may not be available to answer your request immediately or may not have updated their available dates. 3 tickets can be sent to your chosen families to make sure you are not disappointed. However, you will only be able to get the contact details of one of your chosen families.
What happens if I use a ticket to contact a homestay but get no reply?
If the family does not reply, then this is automatically registered by the database and your ticket is reimbursed allowing you to continue choosing until you have the contact details of a family of your choice.
What happens to my remaining tickets once I accept a homestay?
After both parties have accepted the remaining tickets are deleted.
How much does it cost to use PerfectHomestay?
There is a one-time fee of US$20 which guarantees you the contact details of a chosen homestay.
Community
We encourage you all to use the community pages on the Perfect Homestay website. You can build up your circle of on-line friends, send them private messages or join in a public discussion by adding comments on the blog board.
The community pages are also a great way of letting other readers know about upcoming events in your area. You can chat with other users about a forthcoming event and then maybe arrange to meet up there.
For example: The Rugby World Cup will soon be upon us. A Homestay owner in France might post a message on the community page which attracts the attention of a rugby fan from New Zealand. The perfect Homestay match! You could go to the games together and I’m sure you’d have plenty to talk about afterwards!
As well as sporting events, there could be an annual festival, exhibition, or music event that you want to let everybody know about. The community page is the place to do it. The possibilities are endless. So, please make use of this feature to ensure you get the most out of Perfect Homestay.
